The Field Sports Of The North Of Europe - A Narrative Of Angling, Hunting, And Shooting In Sweden And Norway (1885) (Paperback)

Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: CHAPTER IV. Society. Dogs.?Game.?Wild Beasts.?Birds of Prey.? Game Laws. In the vicinity of my dwelling at Stjern, there were few resident gentry, though in the more southern parts of Wermeland this was far from being the case. In consequence of this, my society was principally confined to the families at Risater and Uddeholm: as at both of these places, however, I always met with a kind and hearty welcome, I whiled away, as may be supposed, not a few of my idle hours; my time, indeed, otherwise, would have hung heavily on my hands, for I was very indifferently provided with books; and it was only occasionally, owing to the kindness of my friends in Stockholm and Gothenburg, that I obtained a supply of a few newspapers. The post arrived and departed once in the week. Postage is not expensive in Sweden: it is calculated by weight, and not according to the number of sheets which the lettermay contain; indeed, strange as it may seem in England, a shirt, which I once left behind, was despatched after me by post, a distance of about one hundred and fifty miles, at the expense of little more than one shilling. At this time, I had three dogs; and as I shall hereafter have occasion to speak of these, I shall now speak of their qualifications. One of them, called Brunette, was brown, with pricked ears, and, excepting her tail, which turned over her back, much resembling a fox in appearance. I procured her two years before at Muo- nioniska, in Lapland; and though an errant coward, and frightened almost out of her senses at the sight or smell of a wild beast, she was, in the opinion of every one who had witnessed her performances in the forest, among the best for capercali (or cock of the wood) shooting that had ever been seen. She had an extraordinarily fine nose, was never ti...