RED DEER HUNTING IN GALICIAN FORESTS 
He showed me the size of this monster on a tree, measuring a height of 
5 ft. 6 in M and asked whether I had ever heard of a bigger. When I told 
him I had killed bears in America nearly eight feet long he regarded me 
as a magnificent liar. He knew well no bears have ever been seen of that size 
according to his experience, and my eight-foot bear became a source of 
great amusement to himself and the gillies. 
There were some magnificent trees on Pitseredna, Blazow and the ad- 
joining beats. Some of the beeches and sycamores were of enormous 
size, but the great trees of the Carpathian forests are the spruces. I stopped 
many times to measure with my steel tape these hoary giants, and found 
many fifteen and sixteen feet in circumference, three feet from the base. 
Two on Pitseredna, isolated specimens, were eighteen feet and eighteen 
feet, but even these were surpassed by a giant measured by Prince Henry, 
which is made out to be 21 ft. 5 in. Many of these spruces were over 
150 feet in height, and I have not seen such glorious firs anywhere except 
in the forests of British Columbia. 
After several more failures to get a shot owing to the fineness of the 
weather, and the fact that the stags kept silent nearly all day, I went 
on October 1 to another beat of the great punchbowl opposite Fededzyl, 
known as Malo Zelonica. So far I had only seen the tops of the horns of 
one stag in fifteen days’ hunting. It seemed as if I never was going to see 
a stag; yet my experiences were no worse than the other guests’ had been 
in other parts of the forest. No one had killed a good stag as yet. However, 
every day, as the season progressed, the chances of day-roaring improved, 
and we cannot be for ever unfortunate if we persevere. On October 3 the 
luck at last changed. 
During the night Nicolo Istopuk, my new hunter, had located a good 
stag roaring high up the mountain to the west. I breakfasted at four, and 
then had a stiff climb on a slippery hillside for ten minutes. It was still 
nearly dark, though the moon and stars gave some faint light. In the 
gloomy aisles of the forest we crouched and awaited the dawn. Nicolo 
commenced to roar on an old piece of iron piping, and was at once answered 
by a loud challenge a quarter of a mile away. We set off at once to divide 
the distance, and found a narrow hill path which carried us right up to 
within 350 yards of our quarry, which was now roaring splendidly on the 
top of the projecting spur. The wind, too, was quite steady and curled 
over this top towards us without any back eddies as far as we could tell. 
We now left the path and found ourselves face to face with a very stiff 
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