THE HIGHLANDS OF THE SWEDISH DIVIDE. 271 
Pages more I might fill with sporting incident, both 
with leashed and loose hound—one elk we fairly ran to 
bay by the latter method; then, after seventy minutes 
through the worst of ground, she proved to be a cow! 
But I prefer to add only the following note on elk¬ 
hunting, which, being made on the spot and while 
impressions were vivid, may be of more value to the 
tyro. 
The elk, considering his environment, is one of the 
hardest of European big-game to bring to bag. By 
the expression “ environment,” I simply mean that his 
home, the primaeval pine-forest, is traversable in all 
directions. There are neither inaccessible crags nor 
vast snow sanctuaries. The elk one can follow wherever 
he goes.* Yet, though he is defective in vision, his 
wondrous powers of woodcraft, and subtlety in bringing 
into avail every advantage of the wind to his keen nose 
and ear, will always secure to the elk four to one the 
best of the deal. Five hours out of every ten in his 
daily life the elk is to leeward of his own back-track. 
This is not accident. Is it intuition, or instinct, or is 
it merely inherited, developed sagacity ? 
Elk-hunting combines, to the fullest degree, the 
joint powers of dog and man. Each must depend upon 
the other. But another qualification is required beyond 
those. One learns rapidly to interpret the signs and 
the mind of one’s hound ; but these alone are of minor 
value unless construed by the aid of that lexicon of 
* I must except the flooded streams just bewailed, for they were 
the result of an extremely wet season. Still, wet seasons may, and 
will, recur. Besides, I have hunted elk in another wet season, but 
in a district where there were no streams worth mentioning. 
