292 SHORT STALKS 



heen ejected by steel springs, and came down with 

 all four feet close together, and driven deeply into the 

 pine needles. He must have stood like that, rigid, for 

 an instant, then took two long swift strides. That was 

 perhaps the moment in which Celestin got a glimpse of him, 

 l:)ut if I had seen him I could not have got a shot, for he 

 stopped again almost instantly behind a big pine stem ; 

 again five or six strides and he stopped behind an impene- 

 trable screen of young fir-trees. Now his retreat was 

 assured, and he took it leisurely. Dropping his tell-tale 

 head, he softly pushed his way through the close-ranked 

 stems. Apparently, he soon forgot his fright and began 

 feeding about. Proba1)ly he only took us for wood- 

 cutters, some of whom he sees and hears every day. The 

 deer are unmolested by them, and are consecjuently little 

 alarmed at their approach, but they are continually moved 

 Ijy them, and become " skulkers," a lialjit which makes 

 them more difficult for the hunter to come at. Here, our 

 friend stopped and viciously punished a young tree, re- 

 ducing it to matchwood and twisted fibre, no doul)t saying 

 to liimself, tliat tliat was what lie would like to do to the 

 beastly two-legged creatures who had disturbed his siesta. 

 In this kind of huntino- there is first of all the difficulty, 

 which is common to all woodland stalking, of locating the 

 game before approaching it. In Scotland the deer-stalker 

 is practically certain to see the deer before he can be seen. 

 Not only that, 1)ut he spends an hour in arranging the 

 exact course of his stalk, and before he starts he traces his 

 approach from ridge to liollow, from hollow^ to peat-hag, 

 even to the very rock from whicli he intends to shoot. In 

 a forest like this, on the other hand, he cannot see a 



