82 FOREST CREATURES. 



shot any that happen to be in the neighbourhood.* On 

 hearing the challenge the stag will listen, and after an 

 angry reply will make for the spot whence the sound 

 proceeded.f 



The attachment of a stag to his old haunts is a strik- 

 ing feature in his character. He will repair each year 

 to the same delectable summer sojourn, as regularly 

 as a nobleman removes in autumn to his country seat. 

 In the Hinter Eiss, in Tyrol, was an old stag that-ror 

 years took up his abode on a small flat piece of land 

 that stood out like a shelf a few hundred feet below the 

 summit of the mountain. There, from this command- 

 ing eminence, he could overlook the whole tract, and 



* Sometimes he will approach cautioiislv^sometimes in full trot, and 

 come even too near the sportsman. He -vri -"ut ''- , so precipitately to the 

 spot as to appear suddenly before you ; it is necessary therefore to be 

 prepared, for on such occasions his presence lasts but a moment, and he 

 is off the moment he has discovered the trick. When he is so stationed 

 that you cannot approach him, it is well to imitate his roar, in order to 

 make him leave the spot and draw nearer. But the tone shoidd be in a 

 key somewhat higher than his own voice, to represent a weaker stag ; 

 for if your roar be hoarser than his own, he may fear to meet an adver- 

 sary more pov/erful than himself, and will remain where he is, Nor 

 must you fail to observe if the stag has changed his position after reply- 

 ing to your roar. He will perhaps approach within a certain distance of 

 you, and there remain immovable. In such case, an imitation of the 

 complaint of the hind when persecuted by the ardour of the stag will 

 hardly fail to move him. 



t An acquaintance of mine — the same who figures in the story al- 

 luded to in note f p. 67 — shot in this way, in the autumn of 1860, 

 Twelve good stags in ten days, in the territory belonging to Prince Lam- 

 berg in Austria. 



