13G SHORT STALKS 



infested. They are thus constantly witliin sight and 

 hearing of the x\rabs and their goats, and, having no 

 means of escaping from their neighbourhood, have de- 

 veloped the art of hiding themselves to an extraordinary 

 degree, and their confidence in their own invisibility is 

 unlimited. A practical illustration of this occurred to me 

 one cvenino- when I had sat in one r)lace for twentv 

 minutes carefully spying the surrounding country. My 

 coig-n of vantage was a knoll which commanded a small 

 shallow hollow, in which there was not a vestige of cover 

 except the few thin thuja bushes, which looked as if they 

 could not hide a rat. It was not till T rose to shift my 

 position that a female ai'oui and two yearlings started 

 from these bushes. They had been lying witliin sixty 

 yards of me, and must have been fully conscious of my 

 presence. In this and other respects the arcnii is very 

 like the Pyrenean il^ex, which lives in similar steep, l)roken 

 rocks and scrub, and which also relies on concealment in 

 preference to flight. It has, moreover, the same inward 

 turn of the ti}) of the horns to ena1)le it to push through 

 the bushes. The horns of the Alpine ibex, which lives 

 among bare rocks, curve in one plane. 



This habit of observing you while he Ijelieves himself 

 hidden, is highly inconvenient to the sportsman. If he 

 thinks himself unnoticed, he remains till the coast is clear. 

 If a bolt is necessary, he watches for the most favourable 

 opportunity, and, like a woodcock, [)uts a rock or a tree, 

 in a trice, between himself and danger. From this it 

 arises that one views the game much more frequently than 

 shots are obtained, and many of these are snap shots, 

 j\Iy own experience is suggestive. I hunted on twenty- 



