AUROCHS HUNTING

By Major Algernon Heber Percy

The European bison, or aurochs, Bison Bonasus, which used to roam in large herds over Europe, is now exclusively confined to the forest of Biolvitskia, in Lithuania, where it is known by the name of zubr.[15]

It has long been protected and preserved here most strictly, and has been kept solely as a royal quarry, certainly from the time of the kings of Poland.

Its habits appear much to resemble those of the wood bison of America now almost extinct; for example it makes itself mud baths like the well-known buffalo wallows in the plains of North America. Heads of these magnificent animals being excessively rare, I give the dimensions of the bull and cow which I killed and have now set up:

BullCow
Tip of horn to tip of horn18½ ins. 6 ins.
Base of horn to tip round curve outside17½ ”15¼ ”
””inside13½ ”10 ”
Circumference of horn at base10 ” 8 ”
Across forehead13 ”10 ”

In August 1879, by Lord Dufferin’s great kindness, I received permission from the then Emperor of Russia, Alexander II., to visit the forest of Biolvitskia to hunt aurochs, and was directed to call on the Minister of Domains in St. Petersburg for directions when and where to go. The Minister, M. Walouieff, was most civil and kind; indeed, I may say at once that I met nothing but the most extreme kindness and hospitality from all Russian gentlemen during my visit to their country.

Group of aurochs

Accompanied by my wife and a courier I arrived at Grodno, where I had expected to have a keeper put at my disposal to assist me in finding and stalking the bison; but was rather taken aback at being met at the station by the Governor-General de Ceumern, the Minister of Domains of the province, and a posse of gendarmes.

On the night of our arrival, the Governor-General and Madame de Ceumern entertained us most hospitably, and on the morrow, together with the Minister of Domains, accompanied us by rail to the station nearest to the aurochs’ forest. From that station we drove to the house of the forest ranger, M. Campione, and there supped.

I found that all preparations had most kindly been made for me, and after supper with the Campiones we drove on through the forest, which was lovely in the moonlight, the white rays shining through the leaves here and there, lighting the gnarled trunks of the trees with a touch of silver, anon bursting through a glade and throwing a weird gleam on the mist hanging by the little streamlets, and then at a turn of the road (the moon being brought in front of us) making the most lovely vistas of interwoven branches and leaves, in black on a silver ground.

We arrived late at the Czar’s shooting palace, a small but most comfortable house standing in the centre of the forest, where we were luxuriously put up.

The next morning I carefully unpacked and overhauled my rifle, a Henry express made especially for me. I have shot with it a good many years, and believe that a small weight of lead properly placed—but I will not bore my readers with the old arguments. After breakfast the Ranger, the General, and Madame de Ceumern accompanied us to one of the keepers’ houses where we were to wait. It was a small cottage, and I fear the entrance of our party disconcerted the chasseur’s wife, who, poor woman, was standing by the swing cradle of her newly-born child. As the woman bowed repeatedly when we came in, I laid a few rouble notes on the coverlet, asking Madame de Ceumern to explain that they were for a christening present. This she kindly did when, to my horror, the mother prostrated herself before me, and endeavoured to kiss my shooting-boots. I hopped backwards round the room like a hen, and the grateful female on hands and knees after me. The rest of the party seemed to enjoy the incident too keenly to answer quickly to my frantic appeals to them to tell the good lady to desist; but, as luck would have it, she never caught me, only very nearly, for she went with remarkable ease and speed on her hands and knees.

Soon after this M. Campione came in and told us that we must take our positions, whereupon my wife and I proceeded with M. Campione and a chasseur to my post, by a large uprooted tree at some distance from the hut. The forest was here rather open; on my left stretched a small glade, which gave me a clear view of anything crossing it to a distance of about two hundred yards. On the right, though the trees were fairly thick, there was but little underwood. In front the bushes and undergrowth were much denser, but the ground sloping away from where I stood gave a view of a small clearing about three hundred yards off. Between this clearing and my right and left I could see nothing but underwood.

Aurochs’ heads

A great many of the large forest trees were magnificent limes which supported quantities of wild bees, of which there are so many in the forest that men were employed to rob the nests of the honey. M. Campione explained to me in a whisper that they were trying to drive the aurochs past me, the wind being light from the front. We waited in perfect silence for about half an hour, and then I heard the breaking of sticks and crashing of branches, as the herd approached at a gallop. Across the clearing they came, heading to pass me on the left across the small glade. There were about fifteen of them, all thoroughly alarmed, and presenting exactly the appearance of a herd of American bison, the same carriage of the head, and the tail carried in the same manner. Though I had but one short view of them, one bull immediately caught my eye as being much larger than the others. As they crossed the glade almost in file, he was the second, and M. Campione whispered ‘Le second c’est le vieux, tirez-le!’ At that moment they disappeared in the brushwood, but I could hear them coming straight on towards me, so cocking my rifle, I waited for them to cross the glade to my left. Louder came the noise of the crashing of branches; and out burst the leading aurochs across the clearing about eighty yards from me, closely followed by the second and remainder of the herd. Directly the second appeared I fired at it, and rolled it over. Reloading quickly, M. Campione and I ran up, and found I had shot an old female aurochs, the bull having changed his position while passing through the underwood. ‘Stand still,’ said M. Campione, ‘they may come by us again’; and, turned by a hideous din, shouts, noises, and whooping, the scattered herd reappeared, galloping wildly by us on either side. ‘Le voilà,’ said M. Campione, and there could be no mistake this time; for, facing as I was, the forest was clearer, and I could see him distinctly, a grand beast, his tail jerking up over his back in anger, about sixty yards from me, giving me a perfect side shot, of which I made the most, rolling him over with a bullet behind the shoulder. The death holloa was given by M. Campione, and by-and-bye appeared quite an army of chasseurs and beaters. I at once set to work, after all congratulations, carefully to cut the skin low down on the shoulders so as to get plenty of neck, the appearance of so many good heads being entirely ruined by not having sufficient neck to set them up with. This bull was one which had become well known, and I was told that several applications had been made to St. Petersburg that the chasseurs might shoot him, as he was dangerous, and had injured, if not killed, several people. He was much larger than any American bison I have shot or seen; his hair was finer, longer, and not so curly; his colour was a shade lighter, and his horns do not curve at the same angle as those of B. americanus. I noticed a strong aromatic smell about both bull and cow, which they get from a peculiar grass that grows in the forest called zubr grass. I was informed the aurochs are very fond of it. I picked some of it and found that it resembled ribbon grass, but the blade was all green, and had the same strange aromatic smell which I noticed in the aurochs. The height of the bull at the shoulder was about six feet, but he gave me the idea of being a leggier beast than the bison of America. I saw no difference between him and B. americanus which could not be accounted for by climate and habitat. The differences between European reindeer and American barrenland and wood caribou are certainly greater, and the differences between European elk and American moose are quite as great. I explained to General de Ceumern that I had only permission to take the head and skin of the bull, and that I did not consider myself justified in taking that of the female as I had not received the Czar’s permission, but some little time after my arrival at home in England the cow aurochs’ head was by order sent to me, set up, mounted by a Warsaw taxidermist.

The lynx (Felis pardina)

CHAPTER X
THE LARGE GAME OF SPAIN AND PORTUGAL

By Abel Chapman and W. J. Buck

Though comparatively near ‘home,’ Spain is but little known to the mass of English sportsmen. Its game laws are not such as to deter the foreigner from visiting its shores, and its game list is a fairly long and interesting one; but such sport as Spain offers is mostly ‘driving’—a sport exciting enough in itself, but not to be compared with stalking or still hunting. Besides this, sport in Spain is expensive. As for the ibex of the Spanish highlands, a competent authority states that every ibex shot in Spain by our English sportsmen from Gibraltar costs at the lowest computation 100l.

In principle, if not in practice, the game laws of Spain resemble our own, recognising a vested right of chase in the owner or occupier of the land.

Nominally it is illegal to enter upon any private lands in search of game without a written permission from the owner; but practically the sportsman goes wherever he pleases throughout the length and breadth of this sparsely peopled country, except only in the case of cotos or preserves.

This is an important exception to the big game hunter, for nearly all the regions frequented by red deer, at any rate, are strictly preserved, and wholly forbidden ground to the casual stranger. The snow-clad Alpine regions where the Spanish ibex and chamois are to be found, and a few remote haunts of roe deer and pig among the Sierras, are free to all comers, but the difficulty and expense of arranging drives and of camping-out in these distant regions are very great.

The Government of Spain is unusually civil to aliens, making no special stipulations with regard to their sporting rights. Like everyone else in Spain, the foreigner who wants to shoot must take out a licence to carry a gun (uso de escopeta) and to kill game (cazar). The cost of this is 25 pesetas. In addition to this, each municipality has power to levy a tax in the form of a licence, giving the holder a right to shoot over all lands belonging to the municipality the sporting rights of which have not already been leased. An Englishman furnished with a letter of introduction from his consul would experience no difficulty in obtaining such a licence.

The close-time for large game is, as regards certain northern provinces (Galicia, the Asturias and Santander), from March 1 to September 1, and for the rest of Spain and her Mediterranean islands from February 15 to August 15, but it is to be observed that the law as to close time does not bind game-preservers in their own preserves.

This, in brief, is almost all that an Englishman need know of the game laws of Spain, although perhaps these two quaint clauses (Arts. 37 and 38 Consolidated and Amended Game Law, January 10, 1879) might affect him:—

37. A sportsman who wounds a beast has a right to that beast so long as he, either in person or by his dogs, is in pursuit of it.

38. If one or more beasts are put up by a sportsman or party of sportsmen, and these beasts, being neither wounded by them nor their dogs, are subsequently killed during their flight by another party, those who have killed the game have an equal right to it with those who first aroused and pursued it.

But the wandering rifleman has little to fear from the law in Spain; on the contrary, if an expedition is planned and carried out with due formality and regard to other people’s feelings, permission to shoot anywhere is rarely refused, assistance even being offered as often as not by the proprietor to the invader.

Spanish sportsmen count the varieties of Caza mayor, or larger game, in their peninsula, to wit, red deer (Cervus elaphus), roe deer (Cervus capreolus), fallow deer (Cervus dama), chamois (Antilope rupicapra), Spanish ibex (Capra hispanica), bear (Ursus arctos), wolf, fox, lynx (Felis pardina), and wild boar.

Of these lynx and fox are only reckoned as large game when killed by a rifle ball, while fallow deer can hardly be said to exist in Spain in a truly wild state, although they come near to it in Aranjuez, where they live free and unenclosed.

As suggested before, ‘driving’ is the commonest form of sport in Spain, but there are two or three old forms of national sport still alive in the country, more picturesque and more in keeping with the popular ideas of the chivalrous Spaniard.

Of these the chasse au sanglier in Estremadura, and the pursuit of the bear by the oseros of the Asturias, are worth a passing notice.

When the acorns are falling from the oaks during the stillness of a moonlit night in the magnificent Estremenian woods, and the ripe chestnuts cover the ground, the valientes of the district assemble and wait for the boars to come down from their mountain fastnesses to feed. As soon as the snapping of some dry twig announces the ‘javato’s’ (boar’s) approach, a hound trained to give tongue to boar only is slipped, and as soon as his first note proclaims a find, a dozen strong half-bred mastiffs are despatched to his assistance.

Then for a while the hound-music frightens the shadows and shocks the silence of the sleeping woods; there is a crashing among the dry forest scrub, a breakneck scurry of mounted men among the timber; then the furious baying of the hounds and the noisy rush of the hunters converge towards one dark point among the shadows, and in the half light a great grizzly tusker dies beneath the cold steel, but not before he has written a lasting record of the hunt on the hide of some luckless hound. Pig-sticking proper, as practised in India, is not known in Spain, though possibly it might be practicable on the plains of Andalusia.

The bears of Spain are of two varieties—the large dark-coloured beast known as ‘carnicero,’ and said to prey upon goats, sheep, pigs, and even to pull down horned cattle upon occasion, and a smaller, lighter-coloured bear called ‘hormiguero’ or ant-eater, which is common in the Asturias, feeding upon roots, ants, and such-like humble fare.

Bear hunting in Spain is confined almost exclusively to the north, to the Pyrenees and Cantabrian highlands. Among the Asturias a kind of hunting brotherhood of peasants still survives, whose members face the bear armed only with pike and knife. These men (los oseros de España), with the assistance of a couple of sturdy dogs, seek out their quarry amid the recesses of the mountains, and slay or are slain in single combat. Their equipment is simple. A broad-bladed knife and a double dagger, each of whose triangular, razor-edged blades fits into a central handle, suffice them for weapons of offence. For defensive purposes they wear a thick sleeve composed of many layers of coarse cloth.

When the bear is brought to bay by the dogs the hunter rushes in; as the bear rises to grip his new assailant the osero plants his knife in Bruin’s chest, and then, as the animal lowers his head for a moment beneath the pain of the blow, the double dagger is driven home to the heart with all the power of the osero’s right arm.

This kind of bear-hunting is hereditary, the profession of osero passing from father to son with the peasants of the Asturias; but for the most part the bear is killed like other game in Spain, by means of large organised ‘drives’ or batidas.

Red deer are found locally and irregularly over several provinces of the Peninsula, differing in type from Scotch red deer in the absence of the shaggy mane or ruff on the neck, and in some slight modifications in the horns. Being chiefly forest deer their heads are narrow, and the animals slim built and game-like. They are found both in the mountains and among the extensive pine forests and scrub-covered plains; but the finest heads are obtained in the Sierra Morena, to the west of Cordova, though the deer are most numerous in the southern wooded plains of Andalusia, in which part of the Peninsula the writers of this chapter, forming two of a party of eight or ten guns, have killed from twenty to thirty stags in a week’s shooting, besides wild boar, lynx, and other beasts, and between sixty and seventy stags in a season.

Deer shooting usually begins in November and ends in February or early in March.

The following are measurements of heads that we have had the fortune to obtain in Andalusia. Though not the largest known, they are good typical heads:—

Forest Deer

LengthCircumferenceBeam
No. 1, 8 points (small)17¾ ins.3½ ins.16½ ins.
” 2, 11 ”24¼ ”3¾ ”19½ ”
” 3, 12 ” (royal)29 ”5¼ ”25 ”
” 4, 13 ””22¾ ”4¹⁄₁₆ ”22½ ”

Mountain Deer

LengthBeam
No. 1, 12 points34½ ins.32 ins.
” 2, 12 ”36 ”34 ”
” 3, 15 ”37½ ”34½ ”
” 4, 17 ”40 ”36½ ”

Of the Spanish chamois there is little to be said. He is more or less common in the Pyrenees, where the French call him the ‘izard,’ the Spaniards ‘rebeco,’ and in the Cantabrian highlands, especially about the Picos de Europa, where he is ignobly slain by driving.

But the great prize of Spain to men of our craft is the ibex—the ‘Cabra montés’ of Andalusia, the ‘bucardo’ of Aragon. The Spanish mountaineers do not much affect ibex hunting, though there are a few hardy souls among them who, donning their alparagatas, or hemp-soled sandals, make a living out of this most fascinating of field sports.

The ibex is found on the highlands of Spain from Biscay to the Mediterranean, and from the Pyrenees to the Straits of Gibraltar, as also on the hills round Andorra, on the mountains of Toledo, and along all the elevated cordillera of central Spain; but its favourite haunt is the Sierra de Gredos. This lofty sierra is the highest point of the Carpeto-Vetonico range, extending from Moncayo through Castile and Estremadura, and forming the watershed of Tagus and Douro. It separates the two Castiles, and passing the Portuguese frontier is there known as the Sierra da Estrella, which, with the Cintra hills, extends to the Atlantic seaboard. Along the whole range of this extensive Cordillera there is no such favourite ground for the ibex as its highest peak—the Plaza de Almanzor. During the winter months the ibex are found on the lower slopes of the range towards Estremadura, but in summer and autumn herds of them, especially the males, make their homes in the environs of Almanzor. The best time for ibex shooting in Spain is during the months of July and August. Heavy snowstorms make sport in the winter dangerous and uncertain.

With regard to the specific distinction of the Spanish ibex, some authorities have held that the ibex of the Pyrenees differs from that of the Sierra Nevada and southern mountains, the former animal agreeing more with the typical ibex of the Alps.

Sir Victor Brooke, in a note just received, remarks, ‘The Pyrenean ibex are much larger beasts than those of the southern Spanish Sierras. In the Pyrenees they are scarce, and live in the worst precipices I ever saw an animal in—they go into far worse ground than the chamois, and are very nocturnal, never seen except in the dusk or early dawn unless disturbed.’

SPANISH IBEX

(Capra hispanica)

We, however, have found no material difference in the form of the horns of ibex from the Pyrenees and those from Central and Southern Spain. The following are the maximum dimensions of six ibex heads from these latter districts, all measured by the writers:—

Measurements of Six Ibex Heads

AgeLengthSweepCircumference
No. 15 years18½ ins.11½ ins.9⅜ ins.
” 28 ”27½ ”23 ”9 ”
” 38 ”28¼ ”19 ”8¾ ”
” 48 ”29 ”18¾ ”9 ”
” 5Aged29 ”22½ ”9¼ ”
” 6”29¼ ”23¼ ”9½ ”

All these were shot on the Central and South Spanish sierras.

The following are the measurements of Sir Victor Brooke’s three best Pyrenean ibex heads:—

LengthCircumferenceSweep
A26 ins.10 ins.21 ins.
B29 ”10 ”23 ”
C31 ” 8¾ ”26½ ”

[It may be added that the writers of this chapter devoted almost the whole of 1891 to the investigation of the natural history of this little-known corner of Europe, so that those specially interested may supplement this sketch by a study of their work, ‘Wild Spain.’—Ed.]

CHAPTER XI
INDIAN SHOOTING

By Lieut.-Col. Reginald Heber Percy