Note 58 — Chapter XXV · THE WATCH FIRE.

Stags are not common so far north, but they are to be met with now and then. Elks are much more often seen, and are now pretty plentiful. In the days of which the author is writing, the Game Laws were, on paper at least, very strict about both elks and red-deer. Time was, when the former of these were classed with the bear and the lynx, and were absolutely outlawed as noxious beasts. At the time the author was in Sweden, the laws had gone to the other extreme, and they were absolutely protected,—everybody being forbidden to shoot them; a prohibition which, though it prevented men from going after them openly, was, in fact, as little regarded as most laws are in the fjeld. Now, they may be shot, only under certain restrictions.