[1] The harpooner on this occasion, whose word I have never doubted, told me that once when he was hunting in King’s Bay, on the west coast of Spitzbergen, he saw a walrus take a ‘Hav-hest,’ i.e. fulmar petrel, which was sitting on the water, and was actually engaged in eating it when struck by the harpoon.
[2]Sport in the Crimea and Caucasus and Savage SvÂnetia. Bentley & Son.
[3] The revolver was a useless encumbrance, and the tent can be made many pounds lighter.—C. P.-W.
[4] To deal exhaustively with all subjects connected with mountain hunting, in the Caucasus or elsewhere, would be to repeat much which has already been written by experts in the Mountaineering volume of this series. Rather than do this, I strongly recommend anyone who meditates a hunt in Alpine regions to procure that volume and read it carefully.—C. P.-W.
[5] This was written before the author had had experience of the Paradox, the best of all weapons for bush shooting.—C. P.-W.
[6] Since this was written Mr. St. G. Littledale has killed the aurochs as he killed the Ovis poli.
[7] The term ‘Bavarian Tyrol’ one often hears used is entirely incorrect. There is but one Tyrol, and for more than five hundred years it has formed part of the Austrian Empire.
[8] The above was written before the lamented and unexpectedly sudden death of this singularly versatile and able prince, who, without question, was also the greatest Nimrod of his time. His demise, in his seventy-sixth year, was one befitting his sportsman’s career, the apoplectic attack from which he never rallied overtaking him on his return from a stalk, in which he had killed two 14-point stags. His last words, murmured in a semi-conscious condition, were: ‘Let the drive commence.’
[9] This difficulty the writer, after years of experimentalising, has overcome by using the hollow exclusively out of the right and the solid out of the left barrel of a rifle built expressly for this purpose.
[10] The Editor is not responsible for the measurement of this jump. He assumes that it was measured by the gentleman named, and on his authority it is printed.—B.
[11] Lawn-tennis shoes, with stout ribbed soles, are capital makeshifts for stalking purposes.
[12] Under contracts for elk hunting on private ground it is generally arranged that the shooter shall keep the head, the hide if he pleases, and one haunch, the rest of the meat going to the proprietor or farmer of the land, by whom it is salted or smoked for winter consumption. But on State lands, the rights of which are periodically sold by auction, the shooter retains the whole carcase.
[13] Knowledge of elk spoor, to be of any practical value, can only be learnt by experience: I have not therefore attempted any description of it.
[14] To explain how such a tract, entirely mountainous, may be conveniently hunted, I may mention that there are eight specially built huts and four small farmhouses which serve as quarters.
[15] Unless the Caucasian zubr, of which Mr. St. George Littledale had recently killed a specimen, be (as the Caucasians maintain) identical with the Lithuanian beast.—C. P.-W.
[16] A tiger of this length would only weigh about 300 lbs. not cleaned.
[17] Tigers have been shot in the Caucasus west of the Caspian.
[23] There are no true bison in India, both gaur and buffalo having thirteen pairs of ribs, while the true bison has fourteen pairs.
[24] This antelope is also found in the Caucasus, between Tiflis and the Caspian, where it is also locally known as djÊrÂn.—C.P.W.
[25] Such a crutch is in general use amongst Caucasians.—C. P.-W.
[26] This head was not destined to grace my walls, but is now reposing in a palace in St. Petersburg, her Imperial Majesty the Czarevna having expressed a wish to have one of my trophies.—St. G. L.
[27] This admirable volume contains much information upon other beasts besides the Sardinian moufflon, little known and not treated of elsewhere, e.g. Capra Ægagrus, Ovis tragelaphus (the Barbary sheep) and the red deer of Asia Minor.
