314 THE ZOOLOGIST. 



the fate of the wild animals above mentioned, but, on the other 

 hand, the primitiveness of firearms made man then a much less 

 dangerous foe than he is at the present day. The truth is that 

 to a great extent the chase of the Chamois was left to the natives 

 of the Alpine valleys, while men of position, who enjoyed all the 

 sport they cared for in forests full of Red Deer and Wild Boar, 

 did not trouble themselves about a chase which presented so 

 many difficulties, and was enshrouded in so much superstition. 

 A propos of the Lammergeier Mr. Baillie Grohman states that 

 its former abundance is shown by the registers kept in the 

 monastery of St. Bartolomeo. According to an inscription 

 upon a large wooden tablet there dated 1650, upon which two 

 Lammergeiers are pictured life-size, one Hans Duxner killed one 

 hundred and twenty-seven of these birds, while Urban Fiirst- 

 miiller, a hunter and fisher, killed twenty-five Bears and forty- 

 three Lammergeiers, and his two sons captured thirty-one of the 

 latter. 



According to the official report which is annually drawn up 

 for the Austrian Government, the number of Chamois killed in 

 an average year (say 1892) in the Austrian Alps amounted to no 

 less than 8144 head, or more than three-fourths of the total in 

 the whole Alps. Tyrol is at the head of the list with 2392, then 

 Styria with 2176, and next Salzburg with 2039. In the Bavarian 

 Highlands over 1000 Chamois, it is believed, are shot annually. 

 Italy and Switzerland, with a few in the French Alps, bring the 

 annual total for the Alps to over 11,000 head. We are accus- 

 tomed to read the statement by irresponsible writers that the 

 number of Chamois has within the last fifty years greatly 

 decreased, but Mr. Baillie Grohman is confident that this is not 

 the fact, and gives statistics which confirm his view.* He adds 



* We find amongst our memoranda on Chamois a letter from a corre- 

 spondent at Geneva, dated March 26th, 1879, in which are these remarks : — 

 " In 1878, 779 Chamois were shot in the Grisons, of which number 210 were 

 killed in the district of the Irn, and 101 in that of the Albula, the remainder 

 in other parts of the canton. There were also killed 4 Bears, 5 Vultures, 

 4 Eagles, 15 Owls, 69 Sparrow Hawks, 324 Magpies, and 1 Otter. In 

 comparing this statement of the Chamois shot during the past season with 

 those killed in former years, it would appear that instead of their number 

 diminishing, as was feared, it is considerably on the increase in those 

 districts in which the pursuit of them is permitted by law." 



