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 preci¬ pices than it was when younger.
During the five years I had at Egg and at Lech, where I had an out¬ lying 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 wait¬ ing 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 wonder¬ fully 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,” hang¬ ing 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 m 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
