THE DEER OF NEW ZEALAND 
Guides cost £1 per day and a cook 10s. The charge for the launch 
up and down the lake is £2. The total cost, including extras, provisions, 
hire of tent, etc., works out at between 35s. and 37s. per day. £50 to £60 
would cover the entire cost of such a trip from Cromwell. If the party 
consisted of two persons the expenses, of course, would be individually 
reduced to some extent. With regard to rifles, every one has his own ideas. 
Any good small-bore rifle is quite sufficient for the purpose, though my 
own particular fancy is a *275 Rigby Mauser with pointed bullets. A 
telescope is absolutely essential. The usual method followed when stalking 
is to pitch a base camp and then go off to various likely spots with your 
guide, a couple of blankets and two or three days’ provisions. 
There is considerable difficulty sometimes, owing to the rough ground, 
in getting a stag’s head home to camp. There is no whistling up a gillie 
with a pony! If the gillies were there, which they are not, as we in Scotland 
know them, the steep hillsides would be absolutely impracticable for a 
pony. The only way is to carry the head down, with any venison it is possible 
to take. The best way to pack a head down the hillside is to cut the neck 
skin up to between the horns. Then sever the head from the vertebrae at 
the base of the skull, wrap the skin round under the jaw and bring the loose 
end over the front of the face and tie it between the horns. The head can 
then be balanced on the stalker’s back, the brows coming over the shoul- 
ders and the horns curving at the sides. 
A 50 feet length of £in. to |in. strong Manila rope is not a bad thing to have 
with you. It is useful for negotiating nasty rock corners and for facilitating 
the carriage of a head. 
With regard to clothes : 
Tweeds are apt to get torn in the rough bush, spear grass and boulders. 
Stiff drill khaki is good, and strong shooting boots, with plenty of good steel 
cone -headed nails, with a wide welt, are sound footgear. Puttees are the 
best things for protecting the legs. Knickerbocker stockings such as are 
worn in Scotland are worse than useless. 
An ordinary cloth cap or, better still, a good soft felt hat is about the 
best thing to wear on one’s head, though the latter is apt to get knocked 
off when hunting in bush country. 
If expense is no object a tent may be taken from home, as I have no 
very tender recollections of the New Zealand tents on a wet night. A heavy 
tent cannot, of course, be taken into rough country, but a sound waterproof 
tent makes a lot of difference to one’s comfort at the base camp. 
GGG 
409 
