MY FIRST STAG AND SOME OTHERS 9 



deer in his native haunts as I contrived, more by luck 

 than craft, to do on that occasion. 



Many years after I achieved a somewhat similar 

 kill, but at longer range. We had been driving some 

 of the Havn woods on Hitteren. A fine stag had 

 been missed, and the party were returning, silent and 

 depressed, direct to the lodge. I had left them for 

 a solitary walk home over Stor Fjeld, one of our 

 favourite stalking-grounds. Stor Fjeld, as its name 

 implies, is a high straight-up-and-down hill, bare on 

 its north side, but clothed with some of the thickest 

 of our island woods on south and east. I climbed up 

 the steep bare shoulder, crossed the top with a good 

 wind, and came out over the thick pine-woods on the 

 south side late in the afternoon. It was ideal stalking- 

 ground, where the broken heather-covered slopes and 

 grassy patches above a thick forest gave good oppor- 

 tunity, if the wind were right, of catching a feeding 

 stag unawares. And, sure enough, the stag was 

 there. Exactly where I hoped to see a deer, in a 

 little grassy hollow above the trees, there I found a 

 fair eight-pointer feeding, 50 yards away. I watched 

 him from behind a convenient ridge, but did not 

 shoot. c We have plenty of venison at home,' thought 

 I, ' and his head is nothing out of the way. But ' 

 and this was the master-thought ' there might be a 

 better stag farther on,' and in the light of this reflec- 

 tion the eight-point stag became a nuisance. For I 

 had to pass him to reach the shoulder beyond, where 

 a few days before I had spied a good stag with the 

 glass. To pass him meant a long round, and at one 

 point a crawl ; but twenty minutes later I had 

 accomplished the task and found myself beyond the 

 stag before I moved him, and with the steep, thickly- 



