SPORT AND TRAVEL 57 



carefully, but saw nothing. Then the Doctor stood 

 up, and immediately said excitedly, " Regardez ; les 

 bouquetins ; les grands ; " and I too saw them as they 

 moved. Three splendid old rams sprang one after 

 another from behind some bushes down two or three 

 yards of open rock, and were immediately hidden from 

 view in the scrub below. Alas ! once more these 

 wary animals had been lying, as they always do, in 

 such a position that they could not be seen, whilst 

 they were sure of seeing, smelling, or hearing any 

 enemy that approached. For one instant of time I 

 saw them, as I have said above, spring one after an- 

 other down a bare piece of rock dividing two patches 

 of scrubby bush, at a distance of not more than one 

 hundred and fifty yards; but the glimpse I got of 

 them, momentary as it had been, was sufficient to 

 reveal to me that at last I had seen what I had toiled 

 and searched for in vain in the previous autumn, 

 three patriarchal specimens of Capra agagrus. I had 

 marked in each of them successively the long beard 

 and black shoulder-stripe, and, above all, the great 

 sweeping horns that looked almost too large and 

 heavy for the heads that bore them. 



A very quick shot might have snapped at one or 

 other of them during the moment of time that they 

 were exposed to view ; but the goats were a long way 

 too quick for me. As they were going downhill 

 when we saw them, the Doctor ran along the ridge, 

 hoping to get a sight of them as they crossed an open 



