when the herd appears alarmed and likely to take flight. As soon as he is near enough to distinguish the bending of the horns, that is, about the distance of two hundred or two hundred and fifty steps, he takes aim; but if at the moment of raising his piece the chamois should look towards him, he must remain perfectly still; the least motion would put them to flight, before he could fire, and he is too far to risk a shot otherwise than at rest. In taking aim he endeavours to pick out the darkest coat, which is always the fattest animal.

4. Accustomed as the chamois are to frequent and loud noises among the glaciers, they do not mind the report of the guns so much as the smell of gunpowder, or the sight of a man. There are instances of the hunter having had time to load again, and fire a second time after missing the first, if not seen. No one but such a sportsman can understand the joy of him, who, after so much toil, sees his prey fall. With shouts of savage triumph he springs to seize it, up to his knees in snow, despatches the victim if he finds it not quite dead, and often swallows a draught of warm blood, deemed a specific against giddiness! He then ties the feet together, in such a manner as to be able to pass his arms through on each side, and proceeds down the mountain.

5. At home the chamois is cut up, and the pieces salted or smoked; the skin is sold to make gloves and leathern breeches, and the horns are hung up as a trophy in the family. A middle-sized chamois weighs from fifty to seventy pounds, and sometimes yields as much as seven pounds of fat.

'Specific, special means of preventing or curing,

6. Not unfrequently the best marksman is selected to lie in wait for the game, while his associates, leaving their rifles loaded by him, and acting the part of hounds, drive it towards the spot. Sometimes, when the passage is too narrow, a chamois, reduced to the last extremity, will rush headlong on the foe, whose only resource to avoid the encounter, which on the brink of precipices must be fatal, is to lie down, and let the frightened animal pass over him. It is wonderful to see them climb abrupt and naked rocks, and leap from one narrow cliff to another, the smallest projection serving them for a point of rest, upon which they alight, but only to take another spring.

7. The leader of the herd is always an old female, never a male. She stands watching when the others lie down, and rests when they are up at feed, listening to every sound and anxiously looking round. She often ascends a fragment of rock, or heap of drifted snow, for a wide field of observation, making a sort of gentle hissing noise when she suspects any danger. But when the sound rises to a sharper note the whole troop flies at once, like the wind, to some more remote and higher part of the mountain. The death of this old leader is generally fatal to the herd. Their fondness for salt makes them frequent salt-springs and salt marshes, where hunters lie in wait for them.

8. The hunters sometimes practise a very odd scheme. The chamois being apt to approach cattle in the pastures, and graze near them, a hunter crawls on all fours, with salt spread on his back, to attract the cattle, and is immediately surrounded and hidden by them so completely, that he finds no difficulty in advancing very near the chamois and taking a sure

aim. At other times, when discovered, he will drive his stick into the snow, and, placing his hat on the top of it, creep away, and while the game remains intent on the strange object, he will return by another way.

9. In May the young are brought forth; they walk from the moment of their birth, and are very pretty and tame. When caught, they are easily reared, but they cannot live in a warm stable in winter. The age of each individual is known by the number of rings marked on its horns, each year adding a new one. In winter they subsist on mosses, which are not unlike Iceland moss, and on the young shoots, and the bark of pines. By scratching away the snow, they also come at the grass and moss on the ground, and it frequently happens that a whole bed of snow, sliding off a steep declivity, lays bare a great extent of pasture. Those that frequent forests are generally larger and better fed than those which live mostly on the high and naked parts of the mountain, but none of them are lean in winter. In spring, on the contrary, when they feed on new grass, they become sickly and poor.

10. It is not uncommon in the spring to see on the glaciers the bodies of chamois, killed during the winter by avalanches, by stones rolling down upon them, and occasionally by unsuccessful leaps. Sometimes they are attacked by the lämmergeier,' and a stroke of its powerful wing is sufficient to dash them down precipices, where the ravenous bird follows them, and feeds at leisure on their flesh. The men who hunt the chamois also meet with dreadful accidents. In 1799, on the Wetterhorn, a falling stone carried off

1 Lämmergeier, a bearded vulture found in the Alps.

the head of a hunter, and threw his body down a precipice, while the companion of the unfortunate man, three steps off, escaped unhurt. This continual exposure to danger and hardships, and the solitary life they lead, may easily account for the unsociable and somewhat romantic turn of mind for which these hunters are said to be distinguished.

ASPECTS OF A NATION'S LIFE.

I. A NATION's external life is displayed in its wars, and here history has been sufficiently busy; the wars of the human race have been recorded, when the memory of everything else has perished. Nor is this to be wondered at; for the external life of nations, as of individuals, is at once the most easily known and the most generally interesting. Action, in the common sense of the word, is intelligible to everyone; its effects are visible and sensible; in itself, from its necessary connection with outward nature, it is often highly picturesque, while the qualities displayed in it are some of those which by an irresistible instinct we are most led to admire.

2. Ability in the adaptation of means to ends, courage, endurance, and perseverance, the complete conquest over some of the most universal weaknesses of our nature, the victory over some of its most powerful temptations, all these qualities are displayed in actions, and particularly in war. And it is our deep sympathy with these qualities, much more than any

1 Sensible, open to the senses, capable of being felt.