Be all this as it may, we have at least the fact that the horns of all the elk in Scandinavia do run more or less to points, and that the majority killed have less than eighteen, which number, my experience leads me to believe, English sportsmen, whatever may be their opinions as to growth and age, practically regard much in the light of a ‘royal head’ amongst elk, while with any greater number it might be analogously classed as ‘imperial,’ although neither these nor any other terms that I know of are in use. A head with twelve or fourteen points is reckoned a decent trophy. I have never myself seen one preserved with more than twenty-six, and this was inferior in sweep and general measurements to some which had fewer; on the best which has fallen to my own rifle I count twenty-three. It will be understood that in reckoning points I recognise the claim of every distinct and undeniable excrescence, of whatever size. By the kindness of Colonel C. S. Walker, of Tykillen, Wexford—a keen and successful hunter in India and elsewhere, and my predecessor in the elk forest which I now hold in Norway—I have been supplied with excellent and instructive photographs of some of the best heads he obtained during his four Scandinavian seasons, which have been admirably set up by Keilick, of 59 Edgware Road. They are superior to those in my own possession, and as good all round as any that I have myself seen; but a few have, I believe, been obtained of slightly larger dimensions by English sportsmen in Norway. No. 1 is that of a bull in his prime, with eleven points on each antler. No. 2, that of an old bull described as having light grey long curly hair on his brow and crest, which gave him a very venerable appearance; thirteen points on one horn and eleven on the other. Nos. 3 and 4 are different views of the finest specimen, with twelve points on either side and great development of palmation—a bull also in his prime with no signs of age. The measurements of the latter head are as follows: Height of horns from tip of central brow point to tip of highest back point, 3 ft. 1 in.; height of palmation, exclusive of said points, 2 ft. 6¼ ins., and 2 ft. 5 ins.; curve of inner edge of horns from coronet to tip of inside back points, 2 ft. ½ ins.; width of palmation, centre of horns, 11½ ins. and 10¾ ins.; between tips of inner back points, 1 ft. 11¾ ins.; between inner brow points, 11½ ins.; between tips of fifth points on either side, following curve and across brow, 4 ft. 5⅞ ins.; the same measurement, taut, 3 ft. 5¾ ins.; across skull at brow, 7½ ins.; fifth points, right and left, 6¼ ins. and 7¾ ins.; round coronet, 10¼ ins.; round base of horn, 6⁷⁄₁₀ ins. Sixteen is the greatest number of points I have ever seen on a single horn. This was picked up in the forest, freshly shed, in 1888, and undoubtedly belonged to an old elk of great size which had been known to haunt the district for some years. It is, however, an inch smaller all over, except in width of palmation, than the 12-point horns of which the measurements have been given. I believe that in 1892 I fired at (in a wood so densely set with stems that I had great difficulty in finding a passage for my bullet) and slightly wounded this very elk. Oddly enough he had been wounded in the nose the year before, and within a short distance of the same spot, by my predecessor in the shooting, who was also baulked by the dense growth of the pine-trees. He was by far the largest elk I have ever met with, and my hunter, a Lapp of great experience, assured me that he had never seen one bigger. The conformation of his antlers, so far as it was possible to judge in the obscurity of the wood, was exactly that of the shed horn, the great palmation with its fringe of closely set spikes being very remarkable; but to count the number of the latter during such a brief and exciting interview was impossible. I trust that some time next season I may be able to study them at my leisure, and to decide whether the horns have increased since 1888, or begun to deteriorate. It is certain that with great age, when the vital and generative powers which undoubtedly nourish their growth are impaired, they do go back, often becoming comparatively stunted and distorted. Bad wounds and scarcity of food will produce the same result. The elk sheds its horns during March and April, and the new growth begins to sprout early in June.
The average bodily measurements of a full-grown Scandinavian elk, let us say over seven years old, are as follows: Length from tail to crest, 9 ft. 5 ins.; crest to nose, 2 ft. 5 ins.; height at withers, 5 ft. 8 to 9 ins.; at quarters, 5 ft. 5 to 6 ins.; from belly to ground, 3 ft. 4 ins.; greatest girth, 6 ft. 11 ins. to 7 ft.; round thigh, 3 ft.; round forearm, 1 ft. 11 ins.
The accurate uncleaned weight of so huge an animal it is, of course, impossible, for obvious reasons, to obtain, but it is reported as having occasionally exceeded 1,400 lbs. An average deer will yield from 600 to 700 lbs. of good meat, and a heavy haunch turn the scale at 140 lbs.[12] The height of the bull at the shoulders as compared with the length of his actual body (the two measurements are nearly equal), the massive shaggy neck (on which, however, there is no very conspicuous mane), the enormously long head with its bunch of beard, huge hooked nose and bulbous lip, the rather sloping hind-quarters, and slender legs terminated by immense hoofs, combine to render him a most awkward and ungainly animal to look at; but the rapidity of his movements and his total disregard of the worst obstacles are at times astonishing, and nothing will strike the sportsman more than the way in which, if the golden moment for a shot be lost, the great deer will seem to suddenly and silently melt away like a phantom into the forest.
Another point on which some discussion has arisen is as to what vocal sounds are produced by the Scandinavian elk of either sex during the rutting season, and whether such sounds, if any be uttered, are of habitual occurrence. Personally, during six seasons’ hunting, I have never heard an elk, either male or female, utter any sound whatever; but after long and careful inquiry into the subject, which revealed more antagonism of opinion than even the question of the horns, I have made out, on the clearest evidence, that the bull during the said season gives utterance to a kind of cross between a grunt and a snort, which is often repeated many times in succession, and is audible in still weather at a considerable distance, such sound being unmistakably an amorous call. It is known in Scandinavia as the ‘Lokketone,’ or ‘Lokton,’ and may be heard during the day-time. By equally certain testimony, it is proved that, in moments of rage and defiance, the bull will also roar or bellow furiously. About the call of the cow there is no doubt whatever; she can also, on occasion, produce a loud, harsh roar, intended as an attractive summons to the bull. Colonel Walker mentions his having for some time watched a cow in the very act of uttering this call, after the bull had been shot whilst paying her great attentions. She wholly disregarded the shot herself, and the approach of the shooter, whom she allowed to come within twenty yards before she moved quietly off. When about half a mile away she recommenced her alluring roar, which Colonel Walker describes as ‘like the noise of a very angry bear when you have him where he cannot escape you.’ The cow has also, when separated from her calf, a milder call, nearly similar to that of the domestic animal. The art of calling elk has, happily, never been practised in Scandinavia, and as all the hunting takes place during daylight, and as, moreover, the inhabitants of the interior have a decided objection to being abroad during the dark hours of either evening or morning, this subject, like that of the horns, has probably not received from them much attention. You will find men who have passed all their lives in the wilds of Norway, and constantly hunted the elk, ready to swear that, with the exception of the ‘Lokton,’ neither sex utters any cry whatever. It is somewhat hard to reject altogether the idea that the elk of Scandinavia is, during the rutting season, habitually more silent than the moose is reported to be—but here I get out of my depth.
The first signs that the rutting season is beginning usually reveal themselves about the third week in September, when the hunter will discover in the forest sundry young fir-trees that have been freshly barked and cut to pieces by the horns of the bull. This would scarcely of itself be conclusive evidence, as the bull will occasionally spar with a tree much earlier in the month, possibly to complete the removal of the velvet. I have seen the horns of young elk covered with it as late as the end of the first week. Corroboration will be supplied by sundry shallow scrapings of the ground, the forerunners of the deeper pits which the bull scoops out when his frenzy is more advanced. When, owing to the purpose for which the elk uses them, these pits begin to be so ammoniacally odoriferous as to become guides to even a human nose, then it may be accepted as a certainty that a bull accompanied by a cow is, if not previously disturbed, somewhere in their vicinity.
According to the best authority, the bull only remains with the cow for about three days, after which she will have nothing more to do with him, and beats him off, whereupon he resumes his travels in search of fresh loves. During the whole rutting season, which lasts for about three weeks or a month, and is therefore included to a great extent in the present Norwegian elk season, he eats little or nothing except certain plants of a stimulant character, and becomes, in consequence, reduced to the worst possible condition. At this time he develops a very strong but not particularly disagreeable odour, akin to musk, to such an extent that a hunter might often follow by using his own nose, without the aid of a dog. All the trees and bushes, and even tall grasses against which he brushes during his progress through the wood, are tainted with this peculiar scent. The old bull elks now become very savage and pugnacious, and, not content with attacking each other, will occasionally run at any object they see in motion. My Lapp hunter tells me that when prospecting for elk without a rifle and in the interests of his late employer, he was several times charged by bulls, and had to run for his life and conceal himself in a thicket. But on all these occasions as soon as the elks reached his track and, nosing the ground, recognised the scent of humanity, they in their turn swung round and retreated. It would, however, be foolhardy, if unarmed, to stand their charge, as they might strike the life out of a man with their forefeet, their most dangerous weapon, before their timidity of or respect for the human race generally came into play. An English sportsman of my acquaintance, while returning one evening from an unsuccessful chase, in crossing a small opening in the forest, was charged by a bull, who rushed out of the covert and was only checked at thirty yards distance by a bullet between the eyes.
Both sexes of elk are often seen together by the peasants during the haymaking season, in the forest and near the mountain dairies, and small families, consisting of a cow with one or two calves and a single bull (or possibly a couple), still hold together at the beginning of the hunting season; but as, at the same time, we constantly find a certain number of bulls and cows leading solitary lives, or one or two of the same sex together, the secret of these domestic arrangements is shrouded in some obscurity, and one can only conclude that, as in the case of men, there are some male elk who prefer a roving bachelor life, whilst others have more uxorious and paternal tendencies. I have never been able to discover that the Scandinavian elk has any prominently gregarious instincts under ordinary conditions of existence, although I have heard it stated in Norway that they sometimes unite during the winter into bands of a dozen or more. In some very highly preserved districts, such as the royal forests of Sweden, mentioned later, they are now and then artificially congregated in considerable numbers, and a Swedish gentleman once told me that on a part of his property, at the head of the Gulf of Bothnia, there existed on a stretch of land bounded by two rivers a ‘herd,’ as he termed it, of nearly a hundred elk. But it appeared that in this district, owing to peculiar circumstances and local laws, the deer had not been shot for, I think, over twenty years, and were carefully watched by foresters, so that we have here also signs of compulsory gregariousness; but it is not safe to be dogmatic in this direction. What is more to our present purpose is the certain fact, on which the sportsman may rely, that during the hunting season he will not be troubled or perplexed by any gregarious tendencies on the part of the elk, whether because there are not enough of them or because such is not their habit is of little consequence; he will, I think, discover that a more unsociable and sporadic race of animals, averse to neighbours, does not exist on the face of the earth.
In Scandinavia, now that the use of traps, pitfalls and the like is abolished, there are three legitimate methods of killing elk—namely: stalking with the ‘bind-hund,’ or, as I may render it in English, leash-hound; running with the loose hound; and driving. Of these three methods it may be said that the first is more worthy than the second, and the second than the third. In Norway, owing to the operation of the legal enactment ‘one farm one elk,’ driving is practised on so insignificant a scale as to be scarcely worth noticing. Occasionally, when elk are known to frequent a precipitous mountain, whence it is impossible for them to descend except by certain passes where the guns can be stationed, a few beaters may be employed to move the elk quietly, with a fair prospect of success; but if it should happen that two or more of the passes are within the same holding, some care is necessary to guard against the chance of more elk than the one allowed being illegally killed. A drive of this kind is in Norway termed a ‘klapjagt,’ from the noise made by the beaters. The term is corrupted by British sportsmen into ‘slapjack.’ In certain situations where the ground is favourable, as in a narrow glen or on an isthmus between two lakes, the single sportsman may attempt something of the same kind by the aid of his hunter or attendant, who, making a long circuit, comes upon the elk down wind, and starts them towards the gun in ambush. Nothing more than the wind of man is necessary to move the elk, and the more quietly all these driving operations are conducted the better. The hunter who is wise will always avoid disturbing elk needlessly or wantonly, as they quickly become suspicious of danger, and are apt to travel long distances. In Sweden elk driving has been practised for a great number of years, and sometimes on an immense scale. In Lloyd’s works, ‘Field Sports of the North of Europe,’ and ‘Scandinavian Adventures,’ will be found a detailed account of some of the great ‘Dref- and Knäptskalls,’ arranged in former days by the Master of the Hunt for the delectation of royalty, by which many elk, bears, and other animals were killed. But, as regards this branch of our subject, it will be sufficient to notice very briefly two great drives which have taken place in quite recent times in one of the royal forests near the town of Wenersborg and the mountains of Hunneberg and Halleberg, at the southern extremity of Lake Wenern. Both these great functions were arranged for weeks beforehand, and many hundred beaters employed in sweeping with a gigantic cordon, which was never relaxed by day or night, an enormous extent of forest, and moving the elk gradually to the stations of the guns. The first ‘skall’ took place during the visit of the Prince of Wales to Sweden in 1885, when forty-nine elk were killed during the day; the second, in September, 1888, when, so completely had the stock recovered from the previous slaughter, that in three drives, also on the same day, there were respectively slain twenty-four, twenty-eight (in this case bulls only), and fourteen elk—a total of sixty-six. Great damage had been done by the deer to the young Scotch firs in the forest, which is some excuse for such a massacre.