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
1 Reprinted by kind permission of the proprietors of Country Life.
