208 SHORT STALKS 



bands, consisting of from four to ten almost always, 

 according to our observation, posted a sentinel, and more 

 than one promising stalk was spoilt by this inconvenient 

 precaution, the sentinel posted above having been pre- 

 viously invisible to us. On one occasion one of my 

 companions observed a very complete system of reliefs. 

 Each member of the band took its turn on a commandino; 

 rock for about ten minutes by the watch, standing im- 

 movable while the others fed below. At the end of that 

 time he would go down, and another instantly mounted to 

 the coign of vantage and took his place ; l)ut the most 

 remarkal)le part of it was that the turns seemed to be 

 taken in order of seniority, beginning with the kids, 

 followed by the ewes and young rams — the oldest 

 patriarch, who had by that time finished his meal, being 

 last of all ; Init he shirked his duties, for he distinctly 

 took a postprandial nap. Another trick of theirs which I 

 twice observed old soUtarn males to be guilty of, was, if 

 they saw, or thought they saw, anything suspicious, to 

 mount a prominent watch-tower, and, after a note or two 

 of alarm and warning — a kind of cough wdiicli might spell 

 tlie letters b-u-r-r-up rapidly repeated — calmly lie down 

 jind await events. Woe betide the hunter who, lulled 

 into hope, then attempted a scientific stalk, for his labour 

 wouhl 1)0 surely wasted. I remember once to have nearly 

 circumvented a buck chamois who thus flouted me. He 

 saw the tops of our caps against a patch of snow before we 

 saw him, and bounded away, but stood three hundred yards 

 ofl" whistling. Then he lay down, still whistling and 

 watching. The fatal thing would have been to withdraw. 

 It was necessary to give him something to look at. Leaving 



