Norway
Elg.- The Elk was in old times, as we learn from early writers, abundant in the forests of ancient Germany, and is still found in the vast swampy tracts of VOL. II the country formerly known as Lithuania, although it has in the main gradually retreated northward, and its range may be said to lie nowadays between 57° and 65° N. latitude. It thus inhabits nearly the whole of the Scandinavian Peninsula and Northern Russia, but is rare within the Arctic circle, and extends eastward through Siberia to northern China. Although it never quite attains the proportions of the Alaskan Moose, it is, nevertheless, a magnificent beast, forming, as it were, a link between the present and prehistoric time. Its huge size, its majestically uncouth appearance, its secluded existence and strange hoarse utterances amid the silence of the forest, all seem to mark it as a representative of the gigantic and mostly extinct fauna which afforded sport to the hunter of the palæolithic age.
These remarks of course apply chiefly to the full-grown bull, in the glory of his massive palmated antlers, shaggy neck, and enormous, long-nosed, bulbous-lipped head.
The hornless cow is simply very big and very ugly, and an elk calf probably one of the most ungainly young creatures in the world. A first-class bull will stand 18 hands at the withers, weigh 90 stone, and possess antlers of from 45 to 50 inches spread, with a foot of palmation, and 20 to 24 tines or points; but these dimensions are sometimes exceeded. His hair is dark brownish grey, inclining to black, with a good deal of light colour on the belly and legs, the latter often leading to his detection in the wood. Despite certain assertions that the elk in Scandinavia are in danger of extinction by poaching and over slaughter during the brief legal season, it is an undoubted fact that in the last fifty yearsin Norway at least their number has greatly increased, for in the fifties, as the writer can testify, they were seldom seen or heard of in many districts where they are now not infrequent. The truth is that most sportsmen have not experience going sufficiently far back, and they are apt to overlook the fact that the perhaps frequent cases of poaching are a natural consequence of the great increase of elk. It cannot be denied that the huge deer is a very demoralising animal, tempting many an otherwise honest and law-abiding man to smother all scruples and shoot whenever he gets the chance.
In Norway it is forbidden, under a heavy penalty, to kill more than a single elk, bull or cow, on each farm or registered division of the land, and a return of all kills, with their locality, must be made to the local officials. The shooting of calves is strictly N forbidden. As an annual blue-book is published, containing statistics of all the big game and beasts and birds of prey killed during the previous season, the authorities are kept fully posted on the subject. The legal season for elk-shooting was in 1897 throughout Norway, with possibly an occasional local exception, just thirty days, namely, the month of September, and the returns show that during that time 1,200 deer are, on the average, killed annually in a legal manner.
To give statistics of a private forest, it may be noted that in the seasons from '91 [ELK the elk-season to fourteen days, and by a later enactment a close time of three years' duration was accorded to the deer.
Now that all traps, spring-guns, pitfalls, and the like are abolished, there are three ways of dealing with the elk. It may be either driven, hunted with the loose dog and brought to bay, or stalked by the aid of a dog always kept in hand by a long leader or leash. In old days driving was practised in Sweden, chiefly in the royal forests, on a grand scale, and so late as 1885 a great "skall " of this kind was organised in honour of the late King Edward and THE ELK IN ITS NATURAL HAUNTS. to '96 about 400 elk, bulls, cows, and calves, or an average of over 66 per season, were sighted on the ground rented by the writer, and this in districts where the Lap hunter, born and bred on the place, allows that twenty-five years ago elk were scarce. Of the above number only 31, or an average of 5 per season, were shot, the best bag (to the writer's own rifle) being 9 elk in 1894.
In Sweden it was for a long time lawful to slaughter bull, cow, and calf wherever they were met, without any restriction as to number or locality, and under this system far too many were killed-about double as many as in Norway. But the Swedish Government has shown itself sufficiently watchful in this direction. In 1896 it forbade the slaughter of calves, and limited 66 other royal personages, when forty-nine elk were killed in the day, while in 1888, only three years later, a bag of sixty-three was obtained on the same ground! But in Norway the rule of one farm, one elk," renders driving impossible except on an insignificant scale. Elk-hunting with the loose dog has always been a favourite sport in Sweden, and has been, and still is, practised to some extent in Norway, although it is in that country really illegal. This phase of the chase often demands great activity and endurance on the part of both man and dog, for an elk may travel some miles before he will stand. The shooter has then to judge from the baying of the hound how best to make his approach through the forest and get within the range. The old bulls are ELK] most easily brought to bay, as they disdain to run.
There can be no question as to this being a grand and exciting sport, but it has its disadvantages, inasmuch as it affords little scope for the science of woodcraft, disturbs a great extent of forest, and necessitates, as a rule-certainly, according to Swedish ideas-the shooting of whatever beast, be it young bull or cow, the dog has succeeded in stopping; otherwise he may continue the chase and not be recovered for half the day, or, if often baulked of blood, may lose his keenness.
The so-called elk-hound is clearly a descendant of the breed of dogs which have from time immemorial accompanied the nomad tribes, Esquimaux, Samoyeds, the Laps, of the North of Europe, and still retains all the characteristics of his race, a coat of thick hair, grey, brindled, foxy, black or white, with an undergrowth of wool, sharp ears and nose, and a bushy, tightly curled tail. There are two types of hound, the one smaller and less stoutly built than the other.
To become perfect at his work, the leashor stalking-hound should never be loosed, and must be trained to precede the hunter at the length of his tether without straining, to select instinctively the easiest passage among the tree-stems, to obey the gentlest motion of his master's hand, and above all to be temperate and mute even under the most exciting circumstances. He will, with a fair breeze and favourable lie of the land, often detect the presence of elk or of fresh spoor at the distance of a mile or considerably more. In advancing towards the quarter where elk are supposed to be, one cannot move too cautiously or noiselessly. The ground in front and on either side, and the depths of the foliage, should be repeatedly examined and penetrated with the field-glasses, and occasional halts be made for the purpose of both gazing and listening intently, inasmuch as the distant snapping, or, on calm days, when the task of the hound is most difficult, even the slight but visible shaking of a branch or young tree will often reveal the whereabouts of a feeding elk, as he crops the highest and tenderest shoots of the young birch, aspen, or mountain ash.
When at length the fresh spoor has been discovered, or, in default of this, when from the hound's eager movements it becomes clear that the elk is close at hand, then the hunter's experience and woodcraft come into play, and on these mainly depends the success of the ultimate approach.
Happily, the chase does not always plunge one in the dark recesses of the forest or the tangled swamp. It may be that the beat of the day will lead toward the uplands, where the elk, and especially the big solitary bulls, will be found scattered among the detached pine-woods, birchen thickets, and willow patches of the lower fjeld, or even on the open moor above. Here the fieldglass is in constant requisition, and the sport assumes a strong resemblance to ordinary deer-stalking.
Small families of elk, consisting of bull, cow, and a calf or two, often keep together during the summer and early autumn, but when the rutting season commences about the middle of September, the bulls, who are really polygamous, begin to wander in search of the cows, and, to the satisfaction of the dog, become rankly odoriferous.
Then, too, to the satisfaction of the hunter, they boldly betray their whereabouts by scraping conspicuous holes also odoriferous in the soil, and cutting young trees to ribbons with their horns, and above all by the hoarse love-call which resounds so impressively through the silence of the forest. There is little use in following an elk, unless wounded, which has got the wind of man and been thoroughly scared; he will generally travel at a great pace in an enormous circle, and return nearly to the spot whence he started. But if only disturbed by sight or sound, he may relax his speed and be occasionally overtaken by a patient, quiet pursuit. Elk, when conscious that they are followed, resort to many cunning devices to baffle the pursuer, a favourite trick being to take to lake or river for a long distance, and then, on leaving the water, to double back at a sharp angle, thereby placing the hunter to windward of them. They generally lie down to leeward of their trail.
There is no better weapon for elk than a 450 or 500 express, and no deadlier shot than through the base of the broad neck.
The writer is also able to state that a single soft-nosed bullet from a Lee-Metford 303, placed in the right spot, will stop a good bull. [See also MoOSE.] HENRY POTTINGER.
ELK SHOOTING IN RUSSIA.-It may at once be stated that the splendid animals which form the subject of this note are not, in Russia and Finland, for the outsider or stranger. Elk are more tenderly protected in the country of the Tsar than any other creature, whether furred or feathered; the close time conceded to these favoured animals lasts, practically, through- N2 out spring, summer, and autumn, in Russia, while in the adjoining Grand Duchy of Finland it is illegal to shoot an elk at any time of the year. Moreover, so greatly is the pursuit of elk valued by the higher powers in the land that nearly all the best haunts of these magnificent creatures are strictly preserved by one or other of the relatives of the Tsar.
And yet, for any person who is so fortunate as to experience it, few things are more picturesque or more exciting than an elk-battue, held, perhaps, thirty or forty miles from the nearest town, in the dead of a Russian winter, and in the midst of the forest. The elk being the shyest of creatures, as well as one of the acutest, it is rarely indeed that one is approached by accident, and shot by a favourable chance.