THE ISLAND OF HITTEREN 25 



up. These rights enable deer to be shot in the corn, 

 close season or not ; and many a breeding hind and 

 lordly stag, with horns half grown, have perished, not 

 only inside, but also outside the corn-fence during the 

 long Norwegian early- summer evenings or at dawn. 

 It remains for some English or Norske millionaire to 

 buv up and depopulate the island of Tusteren in order 

 to turn it into a perfect and most sporting natural 

 deer-forest. 



During all my years of Hitteren experience there 

 have been sporting vicissitudes, of course. In 1872 

 and for some years after the deer were not too 

 plentiful. In those days hinds could be killed as well 

 as stags ; and on outlying parts of the island, such as 

 my friend Alexander MacGregor and myself rented 

 on our first visit, and where I had killed my first stag, 

 a season's bag of two or three deer was all that could 

 be expected. Then, again, the ' paper ' rights rented 

 from the farmers in many cases far more than 

 accurately represented the actual possibilities of the 

 sport to be obtained. Each farm had originally the 

 legal right from the Crown to kill two, or perhaps 

 four, deer, according to the size of the ground. The 

 ground itself might not be good for a single decent 

 stag, yet the rights might be sold by the canny owner 

 to some unwary sportsman for their imaginary paper 

 worth. These farms, again, could be subdivided by 

 each respective owner among his family, or a portion 

 sold, and each sale or subdivision operated to double, 

 or even treble, as the case might be, the paper deer 

 rights. Under this illogical system many inferior 

 farms had more deer rights than other larger and far 

 more sporting properties that had continued to be held 

 without sale or subdivision in original ownership. 



