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1886.]

Wild-Soar Shooting in the Vosges.

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populous districts. Many a kefiper has left his home in the Alps or Tyrol, and never came back to it. A slip on some cliff, or an ava- lanche, may account for his death ; but often it has been a bullet, tired at him by a hidden enemy, whom he had punished or provoked in some way, which ended his career. And it is never difficult in these regions to find a ready- made grave for such a one, which is little likely to be discovered.

We never went far without see- ing the tracks of boars, or where the snow had melted the damage they had done by their unringed noses. A wild boar'snose seems to be possessed of much the same power as a strong, well - made subsoil plough. A patch as large as a tennis-ground would be taken in hand if the expression is allow- able by the animals. There would be roots in it it would, in fact, be full of them but if the investi- gators of what was below were in earnest about their work, up the roots had to come. It was easy to see, if they carried on the same proceedings in a corn - field, or amongst potatoes, the great harm they would do.

In all the beats there were roe, and where the cover was young, it was pretty to see the active little deer jumping lightly about, as the shouts of the men and the yelping dogs drove them first one way and then another. At mid-day we stop- ped for lunch. Two men had been sent on to cut wood for a fire, and they had a cheerful blaze ready when we arrived. Huge loaves of dark bread were handed about, and sausages, which some hungry folk ate raw, whilst others pushed them into the hot ashes for a minute's cooking. The sharp keen air made us all ready for the forest meal, and each man paid frequent visits to the beakers of white wine, which

had been grown and made by the head-keeper himself on the edge of the mountain. Much commiser- ation was expressed for one of the sportsmen the old gentleman with the peaked cap. He had fallen down a steep place, bringing his poor old head into violent contact with a tree, and was stunned for a time. He was exceedingly sorry for himself, and looked very mourn- ful when any one asked about the accident ; but I did not see that his capacity for eating sausage and drinking white wine was much impaired. The Baron gen- erally spoke to his friends in the patois of the country, and had a joke and a pleasant word for all. His gun was a curious one : it was both a gun and a rifle. What is often called a "settler's gun" where one barrel is for shot and the other takes a bullet is an abominable invention, because of its untrue balance. But this wea- pon had two barrels for shot, and underneath them, where a ramrod would rest in a muzzle-loader, was a rifled chamber. By the move- ment of a bar, the hammer of the right barrel could be made to fall on the nipple of the rifle barrel. If a deer was started when look- ing for small game, the change could be made almost when put- ting the gun to the shoulder, and a bullet sent after it instead of a harmless charge of shot. Of course the extra barrel added something to the weight of the weapon.

The last beat ended at the keeper's house a quaint little lodge, lying at the foot of a great ruined castle. Nothing strikes a traveller in the Vosges more than the size and number of its castles. They stood generally on some point of vantage, from which they could command a wide view ; but there is one, the castle of Birkenfels, which can hardly be seen by any