Q2 



THE TWO-TOED ARTIODACTYLA. 



of the chase, have achieved feats which in cold 

 blood they could not have had tlie hardihood to 

 contemplate. The following adventure is related, 

 on the authority of Kohl, by the author referred to 

 above. A chamois-hunter in the Bernese Oberiand 

 leaped down upon a friable ledge of slate only a foot 

 in breadth running along the face of a precipice 

 about six hundred feet high. When he found the 

 rock crumbling away 

 and threatening togivc 

 way altogether beneath 

 his feet he was com- 

 pelled to lay himself 

 slowly down on the 

 ledge, face downwards, 

 and drag himself cau- 

 tiously along. With 

 a small axe he broke 

 away the brittle slate 

 in front of him, and 

 crawled on foot by 

 foot, in constant dread 

 of seeing the ledge 

 break entirely away. 

 After labouring on for 

 an hour and a half 

 he observed a shadow 

 fluttering on the face 

 of the rock beside him, 

 and managing with 

 some difficulty to look 

 upwards saw a large 

 eagle circling in the 



air above, and evidently bent on hurling him down 

 the abyss. He at once began to contrive the 

 means of turning round on his back, and having 

 by dint of great efforts and the exercise of the 

 utmost caution accomplished this, succeeded at the 

 end of another quarter of an hour in bringing his 

 rifle into position for firing. Then resting the back 

 of his head against one small projection in the 

 rock, and twisting one of his legs round another, 

 he lay for a while in that position watching the 

 eagle, which in the end thought it better to fly off" 

 and leave the hunter to continue his efforts to crawl 

 along the narrow shelf on which he was hanging 

 on the brink of destruction. Three hours of the 

 most desperate exertions it cost him before he got 

 to the end of the ledge and was able to stand on 

 firm ground with torn clothes and lacerated hands 

 and arms. 



"When the hunter has succeeded in overtaking 



his game he fills the air with a shout of victory, 

 gives the animal the final thrust, tears out the 

 entrails and throws them away, taking, however, 

 great care of the fat, ties each of the lower legs 

 to the thigh, and then swings his booty, perhaps 

 seventy pounds in weight, by a strap over his back. 

 His comrades follow, and they seldom fail to finish 

 up with a grand carousal. If the leader of the 



troop, the ' Fiihrgeiss,' 

 has been slain, the 

 others usually run con- 

 fusedly round in a 

 circle, not knowing 

 what to do, and fall an 

 easy prey to the hunter. 

 " The reader will no 

 doubt ask, what is the 

 reward of the risks and 

 hardships that the 

 chamois-hunter has to 

 encounter.' He per- 

 haps imagines that the 

 chase of the chamois 

 is, at anyrate, a lucra- 

 tive occupation. Not 

 so. A Freiburg pro- 

 verb says that it re- 

 quires nine chamois- 

 hunters to support one. 

 The dangers and diffi- 

 culties of the chase 

 itself arealmost its sole 



Fig i68 — 1 he Duyker bok or Madocqua [Cephalophus mergens) page 94 . . . • , , 



theless, they form an attraction so strong that with 



the true chamois-hunter the love of the sport is no 

 less than an irresistible passion. The following case 

 may seem almost incredible, but can be matched, it 

 is said, by many others. A devotee of the sport had 

 one of his legs amputated, and two years afterwards 

 sent his surgeon out of gratitude half of a chamois 

 that he had shot, remarking that with his wooden 

 leg he could not get along so well as before in the 

 chase, though he hoped to bring down many a 

 chamois yet. At the time of the amputation the 

 man was seventy-one years old. Alongside of this 

 case may be mentioned that of the guide who 

 said to Saussure: 'A short time ago I was very 

 happily married. My grandfather and my father 

 both perished in the chase of the chamois, and 

 I am sure to meet my end in the same way. 

 But if j-ou would make my fortune on condition 

 that I should give up the chase, I could not 



