# Memoirs of Travel, Sport and Natural History/Chapter 15

Memoirs of Travel, Sport and Natural History by Henry John Elwes was first published in London in 1930, and edited by Edward G. Hawke
CHAPTER XV
SPORT IN THE ALPS
If I were younger and able to walk over bad ground, I would certainly prefer a good shooting in Austria to the best forest in Scotland, though the expense is now little, if any, less, and the best shootings are rarely, if ever, let.
Baillie-Grohman has well described Alpine sport as it was years ago, and still is in many places, where millionaires, noblemen or princes have not controlled it. But I have never assisted at any of the great deer or chamois drives, and began too late to become a good shot at chamois, which I think the most difficult of all animals to hit. I have enjoyed many delightful if not very bloody days in a shoot which I rented in the Vorarlberg with my friends Mr. J. Fairholme and the late Mr. Gardner Bazley. Without the help of the former, who was born and lived in the country and spoke the language like a native, and was equally at home with peasants or princes, I could never have rented or managed this shoot; and even with his help and supervision there were many difficulties and drawbacks which prevented us from going on with it after our lease expired.
Egg was the name of a large parish comprising about 14,000 joch, and situated at a short distance from Bregenz at the east end of the Lake of Constance. It had, until we took it, been shot over by the sportsmen of the commune, whose Mayor, or Vorsteher, was a keen sportsman, and would not willingly have allowed it to be let. But the majority of the inhabitants, finding that only a few of them got anything out of it, petitioned the Governor to have it put up to auction. If Fairholme had not had an intimate knowledge of the country, we should never have obtained it at such a seemingly low rent as we paid.
Two keepers were engaged by him. One was a clever fellow but a rogue, who later on was caught shooting the game. The other keeper, a Styrian and a very pleasant fellow, was looked on as an intruder by the very clannish inhabitants of the valley, and was not likely to be too friendly with the men, however much he might enjoy the society of the girls in the Alp hutten. Poor Willi, as he was named, was not a first-class keeper, and the ground was so wide and so broken that he was unable to look after it thoroughly. At first we tried to nurse the roe and chamois, believing that they would increase a good deal when the ground was kept quiet. But we discovered later that the stags, which found a splendid wintering ground in the sheltered woods and valleys of our shooting, spent the summer and most of the autumn on adjoining higher land, and did not come on to our ground till after the rutting season. When the snow became deep they came down, and caused great damage to the young trees by gnawing the bark. This damage was assessed by the Government forester in the spring, and a bill for "Wildschaden" caused by deer which we never saw was sent in, and amounted to as much as or more than the rent of the shoot. Then we would get a notice from the Vorsteher in ​December saying that, as the deer were doing harm, we must hold a battue or the local governor would order one, as he had the right to do. This meant going out in the dead of winter and paying a lot of drivers for very little result; or allowing the inhabitants to do their worst on the deer without regard to age or sex. Then there were poachers from Bavaria —or at least the Bavarians got the credit of it—who were said to be quite ready to use their rifle on man as well as on chamois or deer, if disturbed or challenged by keepers. I expect there was a woman in the affair when poor Willi had his brains blown out, after we gave up the lease, perhaps by one of these poachers. The murderer was never discovered or convicted, and the keeper's body might not have been found if his dog had not gnawed his leash and led the searchers to where he lay dead. This dog was the best dachshund after roe or deer that I ever saw. I remember once, when we had unsuccessfully driven a thick rocky wood on the banks of the river, Willi slipped the dog, who found a stag, followed him across a torrent fifteen yards wide, up the opposite hillside till the stag was out of sight, and three hours afterwards followed him back over the river again and into some cliffs which we had beaten for chamois, and which were too steep for the dog to climb.
It was very pretty sport to go and seat yourself on a still day in a favourite "Weehsel," or roe path, between two of the patches of forest which filled all the hollows on the lower part of our ground, and let the dachshund find a roebuck, which would run round and round, stopping to listen to the dog baying on his track, and generally giving one a shot if you knew best where to cut him off.
Roe were fairly numerous and gave a great deal more sport than they do in Scotland, in their rutting season, July and August. The method adopted was to go out at daylight and walk quietly about in places which bucks were known to frequent, stopping at intervals to imitate the call of the doe. This, called "Blatten" in German, is done by blowing on a blade of grass held in the hands in a peculiar way. The love-sick buck, hearing this sound, which is not heard very far off and only when the weather is calm, runs quickly to the place and shows himself for a moment, but long enough to get in a shot with a rifle if you are quick. My successor on this shoot, Baron von Lerchenfeld, once killed seven bucks in a single morning in this manner; but it is no use staying out after seven or eight o'clock, and the meat is not so good then as in early winter, when it is first-rate if cooked in German fashion.
We often found roe as high up as the chamois when drawing the woods, or rather we found chamois as low down as the roe. For some of the best chamois bucks on the ground frequented the steep rocky woods both in summer and winter, in preference to the higher pastures, which were mostly fed by cattle during the summer months. There were two old bucks in particular, which had long defeated the wiles of the best stalkers in the district, and which I had spied more than once in positions where they could be neither stalked nor driven.
[From a sketch by Ludwig Otto, Dresden, 1899] FIG 9.—THE AUTHOR IN SPORTING KIT.
When we got back to the inn where we spent the night, I locked the body up in an old outhouse, intending to have him stuffed whole as a trophy; but the long black hair, known as the "bart" or beard, was so much-coveted by some evil-disposed person, that in the night the lock was broken and all the long hair pulled out. Such a "bart" is worth fifteen or twenty gulden to make the hat ornament which every sportsman or would-be sportsman in Austria wears, and the longer the hair the more it is prized. The other old buck had one of the narrowest escapes that ever buck had, as I will tell.
One bright, sunny December day, I went out alone with Willi, the snow lying deep in the shady and sheltered places, and we spied the buck near the top of a wooded cliff in a place where he thought he was safe. But as the snow was deep above, and I thought there was just a chance that he might come downhill, we went on till we were out of sight, and then I sent Willi to climb round above him, while I crept back out of the buck's sight to a place where I thought he might cross into a ravine. I posted myself behind a boulder at the foot of the pine wood which covered the lower part of the cliff, and waited a long time in the sun, watching. At last he came straight down to me, but so quietly in the deep snow, and keeping himself so well hidden, that I never saw him till his head appeared on the other side of the boulder behind which I sat, literally within ten yards. I do not know whether he was as much surprised as I was, but he stood for a second, and if I had had a shot-gun or a double rifle I must have got him. But, having a Lee Metford in my hand and being hurried, I cut the hair from the side of his neck with my bullet, and before I could get another cartridge up the buck rushed past me and disappeared in the gully behind. I knew he must come in sight again, and waited till he came on to a ledge perhaps a hundred yards off, where he stood long enough to give me another shot; and then—though I do not expect to be believed—I again grazed the skin without touching the ​body, as the hair was on the snow, and no blood, when I went to look. This was my last season at Egg and I never saw or heard of this buck again.
The late autumn and early winter here was the best season for sport in my opinion, as then we generally had lovely still, bright weather, though long ascents in the snow were sometimes very hard work, and it was necessary to carry an extra warm coat if one had to wait long in the shade. We thus escaped the wet muggy weather and frequent mists which often spoil the sport in August and September. And to my mind, the advantage of being able, by tracks in the snow, to know exactly what is going on in the woods, and to find out the habits of the game by their tracks, is an unfailing source of interest which one cannot have until snow falls and lies, as it generally did here from some time in November till April or May.
Though there were a fair number of capercaillie and black game at Egg, and their playing-places were well known, we rarely saw them in summer or autumn. I only once went out in the spring to try the sport which is so dearly loved in Austria of shooting the cocks at their "balz platz," or, as they say in Scandinavia, at the "lok."
In order to do this one must get up sufficiently early—which means any time between two and three in the morning—in order to reach the spots where the birds assemble before the first peep of dawn. Then you have to wait in the dark till you hear the song of the male capercaillie—an extraordinary sound divided into three parts, which is repeated at intervals of two or three minutes for some time.
Whilst the bird utters this sound, at least during the latter part of his song, he is so much excited by sexual passion that he is for a few seconds blind, deaf and stupid; and as soon as you have located the tree in which he sits, you can approach close to him, by three long steps at a time, taking care to remain absolutely motionless when he is not singing. The approach is sometimes an affair of some duration, as if the bird becomes suspicious and stops singing, you just have to wait till he begins again. Sometimes he hears or sees you and flies off; and if you succeed in getting within shot, it is often very difficult to see him clear enough through the branches above you to kill him in the correct sportsmanlike way with a rifle. Sometimes two, three, or even more birds sing within a hundred yards of each other, and if you are lucky you may get two or three successive shots, for even if you miss your bird, he does not always fly away. I soon had enough of this sport, which does not seem to me as exciting as it is to some noble sportsmen in Austria, who spend three weeks or a month during the spring in going from one place to another on the chance of getting a shot or two every morning, returning to their hut or shooting lodge to finish their broken night's rest. Black game are shot in the same way, but this sport I have only seen in Russia, where it appeared to me more interesting than shooting capercaillie. For several black cocks assemble to dance, fight and court the hens on the same patch of ground, usually an open glade in a marshy forest, and their antics are very curious to watch, though the actual shooting is easy enough.
We had excellent quarters at Egg in two or three inns which were in different parts of our ground, and it is surprising how well they cook ​and what good beds, food and wine you get for a nominal price at these little country inns in the Bregenzer Wald. The natives seem mostly very well off, living on the profits of their cattle, cheese and timber, and were on the whole not bad fellows, though bigoted Catholics and not nearly so honest or friendly as Norwegians of the same class.
Sometimes we invited neighbouring sportsmen to a drive and then we were pretty crowded in a small inn, where the consumption of wine and beer after a successful day was astonishing. Austrian sportsmen, even of the highest rank, are perfectly ready and willing to rough it on these occasions. They usually brought nothing but their rifles, and what they could carry in their rucksack, and were quite happy for two or three days at a time with a bed in the hay, and a dip at the water-trough in the morning.
In a valley not far off is a celebrated chamois preserve, with a fine large shooting lodge at Hopfreben, which was built by, or for, the late Mr. Maund, who then rented the shoot. I had one or two good days chamois stalking on this ground, much of which was very steep or dangerous, and I confess there are many places on it which I did not like at all, as my head, after the age of fifty, became less indifferent to looking down precipices than it was when younger.
During the five years I had at Egg and at Lech, where I had an outlying beat, I never killed a stag with a first-class head; and never saw more than one which was much better than a good Scotch head, though the feeding and shelter are so much better. And I should never have had an idea of what splendid sport Alpine deer afford if I had not been asked by an Austrian gentleman to spend a week at his forest in Styria. I arrived at the station near his house about four in the morning in the first week of October, when the rutting season was well on, and found a carriage waiting to drive me to the house, where I arrived to find him ready to start as soon as I had had breakfast. We drove a little way up the valley, where we were met by two foresters with ponies and lanterns, for it was still quite dark. Mounting the ponies, we rode up a long zigzag ascent through the forest till we reached its upper limit about daybreak. The head forester then took out a conch shell, with which he produced a wonderfully good imitation of a stag's roar, finishing with three deep grunts. Before long he was answered by two or three stags not far off. I found that my friend intended to keep us company, as he said that he had now killed his 500th stag, and that, unless he found one whose head was remarkable, he had rather I did the shooting. So we started for the stag whose roar came from the most accessible place not far off. It was a dark, rather misty morning, and we found the stag standing on the edge of the forest with two hinds and a small stag, known as the "Beihirsch," hanging around at a little distance. The ground was so flat and open that my companion and the forester seemed to think it was impossible to get within shot, though the stalk would have seemed quite easy to a Scotch forester. So I said that I would try and creep in alone whilst my companion went to look for another. I had not much difficulty in getting up to about 150 yards of the master stag, going, as the forester afterwards told his master, "schlangenweise," or snake-like, on the ground; but when I got ​as near as I dared go, the stag was so restless and the light so bad that I missed him, We found another later, but as he was standing a good deal higher up and they calculated that by the time we got above him the cloud would be on the hill, we did not stay out late but went in at eleven to a good dinner and a snooze. This I found to be the regular plan here during the rutting season, as the stags rarely roar after nine or ten in the morning, when they retire to the shelter of the woods, coming out again and commencing to roar an hour or two before dark.
The estate was admirably provided with narrow paths along the sides of the forest-covered hills, these paths keeping very much on the same level. When the season begins, these paths are cleared of all fallen trees and sticks so that you can walk in perfect silence, and approach either from above or below any stag which may be heard roaring. I also found that the position of the sun determines whether the stalk is made from above or below, as when the hillside is in shade the air draws down the hill and, when in sun, upwards. And as the weather at this season is usually still and sunny with frost at night, one has little trouble with eddies and currents of wind, which so often spoil a stalk in Scotland. In fact, the system is quite different and consists rather in finding stags by their roar, and using the glass mostly to make out deer at a distance.
That evening we slept and dined very well in a keeper's house to which our necessaries had been sent up. Next morning I went out alone with the head forester and soon after daylight heard a stag roaring in the forest. When we got within 200 yards I asked him to let me go in alone, as I feared that he might put me off my shot, and after a little manoeuvring I got sight of a hind walking slowly through the forest. The stag was not far behind and I killed him dead with a single shot, and found I had a good ten-pointer, Up ran the forester, who was very pleased, but he neither bled nor gralloched the stag. I found that this is never done here until after the body is carried down to the road, as it is supposed to make deer shy of the ground where any blood or entrails are left.
The next thing was to cut a sprig of silver fir, which he presented to me with great ceremony to place in my hat as a sign of success, and then to take out the two big teeth which are much valued by German sportsmen. We then went back to the house where my companion soon arrived and congratulated me. He had found a stag whose horns were abnormal and formed two knobs on the top of the head, and was more anxious to get it than if it had been a sixteen-pointer.
In the afternoon I went out again, and found five or six different stags moving about in a partly wooded hollow, but so restless and uneasy that I could not get a shot. During the six days I was here I never saw more than two or three hinds in company with a stag, and sometimes only one. But though hinds were nothing like so numerous as in a Scotch forest, the proportion of good stags was much greater, and I was told that about eighty are annually shot on the estate. The next day we had a drive in a place where my host told me he once shot eleven stags without moving from his post. Only three men acted as drivers, and they went a long way round before daylight, and walked towards us through the woods, tapping trees as they went.
​My post was on the edge of a steep grassy opening running up and down the hill between two strips of forest, and I sat facing the one which was being driven, with the sun rising just at my back. Two or three hinds and small stags came to the edge of the forest, and, after looking out, passed across the opening below me at a walk, as I did not think them good enough to shoot. Then a royal put his head out at the same place, and smelling the tracks of the deer which had crossed before him, came on with confidence at a slow trot. I took a careful aim at about seventy yards, and he rolled down the hill out of my sight, apparently dead. Above me my host got two stags, one a very good one, and the men were sent to drag them down to the road a long way below.
In the afternoon we went out together and about five o'clock heard a stag roar in a strip of forest, separated from the wood where we stood by a rather steep, smooth, grassy sort of gully, about twenty yards wide. After listening for a while, as he did not seem to get nearer, I began to cross the opening, but was immediately pulled back by the forester, who said it was dangerous. It seemed to me perfectly safe though the slope was steep, but whilst he was talking in a whisper, the stag, luckily for me, came out fifty yards above me. I aimed at his heart and fired. He gave a jump into the air and fell on his back, rolling down. I then realised how steep and slippery the grass was, for by the time the stag was opposite where we stood, the body was rolling at such a rate that it was soon out of sight 400 yards below, and I expected to find every bone broken. But we never got to the place where it was found, as my companion said it might roll a long way further, and it would be recovered by one of his men in the morning.
The next day we moved our quarters to another keeper's house a few miles off, where we were made very comfortable as before. On the way we passed over a high bare hill, which overlooked an adjoining valley forming part of one of the Emperor of Austria's private preserves. As we were spying the ground, which was high-lying grassy moorland with scattered bushes and stunted trees, I saw a very good stag, which we made out to be a sixteen-pointer, coming up slowly from the march into our ground, as though looking for hinds, of which we could see two with a small stag on the other side of a grassy ridge which ran down from the hill where we sat. I said, "There is a stag worth some trouble." My host said, "Yes, but you will never get a shot in this open ground, for we cannot come down from where we are without his seeing us." I said, " Let me try alone, for I think I can," so I started to slide down on my back in full view, stopping when the stag stopped, and going on when he moved on. When I did get about 300 yards down, the stag had put the ridge between him and me, and seeing that it was quite safe, I jumped up and ran to the place where he crossed the ridge. Peeping over quietly, I saw a really splendid beast within 200 yards, just coming to the hinds after driving the small stag away. And I certainly believe that I would have got him if the men above had not foolishly tried to follow me, standing up, and not on their backs. But the hinds had already seen them and were just going to be off. Seeing that there was no time to lose I aimed carefully at the stag, but just as I pressed the trigger one of the ​hinds pushed the stag and he went off, unhurt as far as I could judge. I could never make out whether the action of my host and his forester was due to jealousy or carelessness. They might have wished to keep such a fine head for themselves, or they may not have realised that the hinds could see them if the stag could not. I think, however, that though Austrian foresters are, from long practice in steep and difficult ground, much better at chamois stalking than most Englishmen, they are not nearly so good at crawling or at approaching deer in easy ground as the average Scotch deer stalker, and are nothing like so clever in the use of a telescope as our men usually are.
I had now had five days of excellent sport in this forest, and had killed five stags, besides missing two; and I might easily have killed as many more. On the last day we had a long walk back to my host's house, and after spending the morning in vainly trying to get a very restless stag which would not stop long enough in one place to be stalked, we were going along a path on a steep hillside with open ground above us. Coming round a corner I saw a good stag standing alone at a distance which I guessed at 350 yards, and very high above me. He stood and watched us, and though I have never been in the habit of trying such long shots as this, I thought I might take a last chance.
I had often found that my Lee Metford carried high when shooting downhill, and I had missed several chamois standing below me. Though I had asked my son, who at the time was musketry instructor of his battalion of the Scots Guards, what was the proper allowance to make when firing at steep angles up or down hill, he said there was nothing known about it in the army as their musketry practice was always on the level; and the lesson of Majuba Mill did not seem to have opened the eyes of the musketry instructors at that date. Sir Edmund Loder was the only man who seemed to have worked out the question for himself, and he advised me to aim very low when firing downhill with a Lee Metford fitted with sporting sights as mine was.
In this case I put up the highest sight, marked 300 yards, and took it very full, firing from the shoulder without a rest. The stag gave a start and stood still without shifting his position broadside on to me. I fired a second and then a third shot, without any visible effect. At the fourth shot the stag dropped dead. When we got up to him, which took a long time, I found that one shot, which I suppose to have been the first, had passed through the shoulder; and another, I suppose the last, through the heart. My companions were much surprised at the distance, which they estimated at 400 to 500 yards, and I went away with a reputation which I certainly did not deserve. For though, with modern telescopic sights properly fitted to a Mauser or Männlicher rifle, a first-class shot may fire at such distances with a good chance of killing, I have always looked on about 150 yards as my farthest safe distance, and have missed many shots, especially when lying down, even at that range.
This ended the best week's sport I ever had, and one that I would not have changed for treble as long in the best forest in Scotland. But I must again warn English sportsmen of the many difficulties that the leasing of Alpine preserves by foreign sportsmen entails, even if they speak ​German well. In most of those that are not the private property of great landowners—and these are hardly ever let—there are innumerable rights of way, of grazing, timber felling and other easements as the lawyers say, which are very likely to cause trouble to one who is not a native of the country. Though the game laws in Austria are very stringent and strictly enforced, poaching in many districts is rife, and bloody affrays between keepers and poachers, though not so common as they were, are still possible. "Wildschaden," or damage done by deer, has also to be reckoned with, and if deer become too numerous, of which the Government officials are the sole judges, you may be obliged to kill them down, or, in default of doing so, a battue may be ordered in your absence. Keepers who have no one on the spot to superintend them not infrequently do a bit of poaching themselves, and in other ways the position of a foreigner is not the same as that of a native.
But to those who do not mind these risks, or who have friends in the country on whom they can rely, sport in an Alpine preserve is more attractive than in the Highlands. The season, commencing with chamois and roe about June 15th and lasting till November or December, is much longer, the climate much less wet and windy, the scenery much more beautiful; and for the man who likes to do his stalking independently, and not to follow at the heels of a stalker and only fire when he is told, the opportunities of using your own eyes, skill and judgment in finding and approaching game are much greater. With the help of ponies and good paths, which are made expressly to help the sportsman in most of the best preserves, even an old man may stalk without much fatigue; and those who are too old to stalk may have many more opportunities of driving game, without unduly disturbing the preserve, than in the Highlands.
No one who did not see the incomparable exhibition of sporting trophies and accessories of sport at Vienna in 1910 can have any idea of the extent to which the preservation of big game is carried in many parts of Austria and Hungary, or of the amount of money that is spent on this form of sport. And though one can hardly hope to kill such magnificent trophies as those which were shown there, one may at least be certain of finding some better than can be got at home. I visited Vienna on purpose to see this Exhibition, which was described in a Special Supplement to Country Life on July 30th, 1910; and at the request of the Editor wrote an article on some of the exhibits which most interested me. My friend Mr. Fairholme, who on account of his familiarity with Austrian manners and customs acted as British Commissioner at Vienna, selected four heads from my own collection which would have been shown there. But the committee decided to restrict the British collection to specimens killed in some part of the British Empire.
The Trophy Hall at the International Shooting and Field Sports Exhibition, 1910.
This building contained, when I visited Vienna on June 10th, a selection from the finest heads sent to the exhibition, and brought together for the purpose of awarding prizes. As it was decided that none of the English exhibits should be removed from our own building, which has been already so well described in Country Life, the competition was principally confined to trophies of European big game; and as English exhibitors were not allowed to send any heads not killed in British territory, Asia and America were not so well represented as they might otherwise have been. But the number, size and variety of trophies—red deer, fallow deer, roe, chamois, ibex, moufflon, elk, boar and bear—were really wonderful, and can only be described very imperfectly in the absence of a catalogue, while no prize-list had been published when I left Vienna.
Few Englishmen who have not lived in Austria have any idea of the extent to which large game is preserved, or of the immense amount of care, time and expense which the majority of large landowners devote to the improvement of their shooting-grounds. Though racing is a popular sport, yet shooting holds by far the first place in their estimation, and fine heads are prized even more than by ourselves, while the rage for collecting abnormal varieties and monstrosities is a special cult with many of them. With regard to the system adopted by the Committee in awarding prizes, I must say that, in my opinion, which agrees with that of Mr. Millais, not nearly enough importance is given to symmetry, for which only a maximum of ten points is allowed. Size and weight obtain too large a number of points in comparison with this important feature, and under the German and Austrian code of rules, a head in which the points were numerous, irregular in position and individually small, would in many cases be placed before one in which the points were long, even, regular and equal on both antlers.
On entering the hall the first thing that I noticed was a wapiti head sent by Mr. Baillie-Grohman. This, though a very fine twelve-point head, would stand little chance of winning in competition with several that I have seen, or with others which are recorded by Rowland Ward. Mr. Millais, than whom there is no better judge, considers that Mr. Tulloch's twenty-pointer was the finest in the American Exhibition of 1887. A collection of trophies from Central Asia was sent by the Prince of Braganza, Herr G. von Almasy and Hubert von Archer. The last has some fine ibex and wild sheep from the Thian-Shan; but there were no first-class heads of O. poli, O. ammon or O. hodgsoni in the Exhibition, some of which at least might have been admitted if the English Committee had not ruled otherwise.
The same may be said of the various races of Asiatic wapiti, of which I only noticed one of moderate size from the Thian-Shan and none of the Manchurian Cervus luehdorfi. By the way, are we any longer justified in calling the Asiatic animals wapiti? It seems to me that this name ​ought to be confined to the American species, and that maral is a better name for the Central Asiatic deer of the wapiti type.
Asiatic roe are also exhibited, and show an extraordinary variety in the set and pearling of the horns, though I saw none in the Exhibition quite equal to Herr Hagenbeck's record head.
Count Ludwig Apponyi shows a very fine collection of moufflon heads and skins from his estate in North-West Hungary, where this handsome sheep seems to have become perfectly naturalised. It was first introduced from Corsica by Graf Fogatsch about seventy years ago into the Nitra comitat. The size of the horns seemed at least equal, if not superior, to the best I have seen from Corsica and Sardinia. The first prize for moufflon was, however, awarded to Chevalier Wessely for a pair of horns 33·85 inches round the curve and 9·49 inches in circumference at the base. (This measurement was taken by Herr Gustav Schuster of Vienna, editor of Halayi at the request of the editor of Country Life.) Only one slightly longer is recorded by Rowland Ward from Sardinia, and this is ¾ inch less in circumference. I saw no heads of the Cyprian or Armenian wild sheep. Some very fine moose heads from Alaska are shown by Paul Niedieck, one of which, with seventeen points on each side, measures 6 feet 2 inches across, and is one of the most imposing heads in the exhibition. Herr Schuster's measurement was 77·16 inches in spread, and the weight (presumably with the head) is given as ninety-four and a half pounds. It received the first prize in its class. Another, killed in the Kenai Peninsula in 1909 by Rudolph von Guttmann, has nineteen points on each side, and a third, killed on the Macmillan river by Mr. Selous, comes very near it in size and symmetry. This is shown in the British Pavilion, and has the right-hand palm so thick that it is partly divided into two layers. Philip Oberlander shows a fine Stone's sheep head from Cassiar, and also one of the race known as O. nelsoni from Lower California.
The caribou heads in this building are not so fine as those shown in the Canadian Government building, where Mr. W. Pike has brought together a splendid selection of heads from British North America, which are separately described.
Elk from Sweden and Norway are better shown than I have ever seen them previously, and afford an excellent opportunity of comparing the heads from these countries. The finest Swedish elk is sent by Herr Rothmann, from Murjeck, and measures 4 feet 8 inches in span, and 2 feet 8 inches from the highest point of the shovel to the longest point on the brow. It has on the left twelve and on the right eleven well-developed points, measures 8 inches in girth above the brow, and its weight is given as twenty-five kilogrammes. It received the first prize. Another, from Jockmock in Lapland, is evidently that of a very old bull, and has twenty-four rugged points, and there are three others of a somewhat different and more erect type from Nederkalix, Bracke and Helsingland, the latter with twenty-four very regular and well-shaped points.
A very curious Norwegian elk head has on the right antler five points turned upward and three downward, while the seven on the left are all ​normal. None of the Norwegian elk heads in this building, or in the Norwegian building from which they came, are so fine as the Swedish ones, or as several which I know of in England; and there is no Norwegian red deer equal to one in my possession from the island of Hitteren. Scandinavian reindeer are also poorly represented in comparison with elk, both as regards size and number.
The roe heads from South Sweden were also remarkably large and well developed, and seem to have been a great surprise to the German and Austrian sportsmen. It seems remarkable that this animal should be found over so Avide an area as from Sweden to Southern Spain in the West, and from Western Mongolia to the Caucasus in the East.
From the Caucasus came two fine wild goat heads, a splendid pair of the horns of the Caucasian tur (Capra cylindricornis), sent by Prince Demidoff; and though E. Juthner sent a fine Caucasian stag's head with twenty-two points, I do not think from memory that it is equal to Mr. Littledale's best head. Mr. Walter Winans sent some hybrid red deer and wapiti horns from Surrenden Park, and some very fine boar heads from Sachsenwald, for which he received a group prize.
The King of Italy sent a remarkable collection of ibex heads, killed by his grandfather and himself in the Royal preserves in the Val d' Aosta. The finest of these, which obtained first prize, was, according to Herr Schuster's measurement, 31·89 inches in length and 8·86 inches in girth at the base. Several larger heads are recorded by Rowland Ward (Records of Big Game, ed. III., p. 347) as being in the collection of the King of Italy, and one which was shot by the late King Victor Emmanuel is there given as 33⅛ inches by 9 inches in girth, with a span from tip to tip of 39I inches. But Mr. Baillie-Grohman in Sport in the Alps, p. 267, states that, according to Count Hoyos, the largest head in the King of Italy's collection is 30⅓ inches along the curve by 9¾ inches in girth and 29¾ inches from tip to tip, so there is probably some error in the Records of Big Game. All of these are straighter and stouter in comparison with their length than any of the horns of the Siberian and Himalayan ibex.
I saw no heads of the Spanish or Sinaitic ibex, and none of the wild goat from Asia Minor or Crete. Neither were there any stags' antlers from Asia Minor, the Crimea or Turkey, so that the compulsory omission of contributions from Englishmen of these and many other animals not killed on British territory is much to be regretted.
When, however, we come to German collections of stags, fallow deer, roe and chamois, their number is simply bewildering; and though they have been very carefully judged, and the prizes awarded by a committee of Austrian and German connoisseurs, it is almost impossible to pick out the most striking. The head which received first prize belongs to Prince Alfred Montenuovo, and is figured by Mr. Baillie-Grohman on Plate XIV. of Sport in the Alps.
This stag was killed by a peasant in Hungary, and when killed the antlers weighed 29·7 pounds. According to Plerr Schuster, they measure 40·55 inches, with a spread of 42·12 inches, and the burr is 11·81 inches in circumference. The head has eleven points on the right side and eight ​on the left, the most remarkable feature being that both brow tines are forked, the right having three, the left two points. A head shown by Count Traun has the left antler almost palmate on the top with six points, but no bay or trez antlers. Duke Johan von Liechtenstein showed two heads, which were very remarkable on account of their narrow span and abnormal palmation. A splendid thirteen-pointer, shown by Hugo Mossier, is no less than 1·60 metres in width.
With regard to the weights of these Hungarian stags it is difficult to get exact figures, because sometimes the stags are weighed as shot, sometimes when brittled; and sometimes, no doubt, as it has occurred to me, it is impossible to get the body from where it fell without cutting it up, and then the weight is estimated, after weighing it in pieces. Mr. BaillieGrohman quotes the heaviest weight known to him, as given by E. von Dombrowski, at 44 stone 4 pounds, equals 620 pounds. A head was shown by Count Schonbom Bucheim (numbered 6,129) from a stag whose weight was given as 270 kilogrammes. But I was assured that the heaviest stag killed in Javovina, a forest in the Hohe Tatra, was 397 kilogrammes as killed, and 312 kilogrammes when brittled, and this comes very near the weight given in Sport in the Alps, p. 178, of two stags killed in 1693 and 1696, as 850 and 835 pounds. A remarkable head killed by the German Emperor at Rominten in East Prussia has no less than forty-four points; but these are small and crowded on the top, in the style of the celebrated sixty-six pointer in the collection at Moritzburg. A selection of these relics of a bygone age was sent by the King of Saxony, sufficient to show that no modern red deer can compare with them in span, size, or number of well-developed points. For though I searched the whole collection I could find no modern stags head with more than eighteen or twenty really well-developed points, most of the best having fourteen to eighteen.
Chevalier Wessely gained the first prize for fallow deer with a head which measured 26·48 inches round the curve, and 22·04 inches in spread, with the palm 6·69 inches across. There were many others: from Duke Gunther of Schleswig-Holstein, from the Duke of Ratibor and from the Prince of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha; but perhaps the best that I noted was a head from Hacs in Hungary with sixteen points on one side and fourteen on the other. I was under the impression at the time that some of these heads were larger and heavier than our best park heads, but on comparing the measurement of the first prize head mentioned with those given by Mr. Millais in British Deer and Their Horns I find that both in England, Scotland and Ireland fallow deer have existed which considerably exceed the German heads in length and spread. The record whose origin is known is from Drummond Castle, Perthshire, and measures 36 inches in length with a span of 37 inches. Millais gives 8 pounds 1 ounce as the weight of the best horns known to him (with skull, but without lower jaw), which came from Petworth Park.
Among the curiosities were a pure white roe, stuffed whole, and a chamois of a pale yellowish dun colour; and in the collection of chamois horns sent by Herr Paul Haberg was a most remarkable head, fawn colour striped with grey, and very wide-set horns. The record chamois ​head (numbered 6,111), from the Carpathian Mountains, was shown by Baron Donald Schönberg. It measured 12·6 inches along the curve, 4·13 inches girth at base, with a spread of 7·08 inches. Herr A. Huter showed a white-headed chamois.
The best collection of roe heads was shown by Count Trautmansdorff, and contained many of great size and abnormal development. The first prize for roe was awarded to Count Mycielski for a head 12·2 inches high, 7·87 inches round burr and 7·08 inches in spread.
Bears are still not uncommon in parts of Hungary and Galicia, as well as in Bosnia and Croatia, but seem to be nearly extinct in Austria proper, though there are still a few left in the Dolomite Alps of South Tyrol. The largest bear in the exhibition is one sent by Count Potocki, which is stuffed in an erect attitude and stands 7½ feet high. From the point of the nose to the eye this bear measures 6·03 inches. Another fine one, killed in Galicia by Dr. Boujinsky, has a dark, almost black, fur.
The prize for a wild boar goes to the Emperor of Austria for a splendid head with tusks 13·6 inches in length. A superb boar shown by Freiherr Gotz Akocin seems to be of stouter build, and to carry longer tusks and a much thicker coat of bristles, than the boars of the Ardennes, but this, no doubt, is accounted for by better feeding. It would be interesting to know the weight attained by the wild boars in Hungary and whether they ever equal those of the Caucasus, which are said to attain 600 pounds. The heaviest that I have killed in Belgium, Turkey and Asia Minor did not attain half this weight.
* ↑ A "joch" is more than two acres.
* ↑ Reprinted by kind permission of the proprietors of Country Life.