HINTS. 223 



Wherever you maybe — I mean when out with the 

 intention of shooting something — walk as quietly, as 

 noiselessly as possible. Whether you are near the post 

 you are to take, supposing the game is to be driven, 

 or if not yet arrived at the ground where the game is 

 expected w^hich you are in quest of, still let your foot- 

 steps and your tongue be as low-sounding as though 

 you were close upon their traces. You never can know 

 if some out-lying animal may not be near. I have 

 found stags couched in thickets which were so small that 

 it would have seemed ridiculous to pretend a deer might 

 be lying there. If you advance quietly and prepared, 

 you are enabled to take advantage of any chance of this 

 sort ; but should you little heed how you get over the 

 ground, or chat the while to your companion as you go 

 along, the game that happened to be in so unusual a 

 spot, and which with more caution you might have 

 called your own, will be up and away in time to avoid 

 your closer neighbourhood. And you need never tell 

 yourself, " Noio there is no need of caution : there will 

 surely be nothing here." In the most unlikely places 

 I have been taken by surprise in this way. You never 

 may say with certainty where a head of game may 7iot 

 be.* It was but the other day (November 4) that, on 

 coming down from the top of a mountain in the Tyrol, 

 a case in point occurred. I had shot a chamois in the 



^ Of course I speak of clistricta where game is known to abound. 



