and thus escape from a spot where, without wings, egress seemed impossible. When reaching upwards on its hind-legs, the fore-legs resting on some higher spot, it is able to stretch to a considerable distance, and with a quick spring bring up its hind-quarters to a level with the rest of the body, and with all four hoofs together, stand poised on a point of rock not broader than your hand."[19] The chamois feed on various mountain herbs, and on the buds and sprouts of the rhododendron and latschen (a pine). At night they couch among the broken rocks high upon the mountains, descending at daybreak to pasture, and retreating, as the heat increases, towards their fastnesses. When winter comes, they are forced down to the higher forests, where they pick up a scanty subsistence from moss, dead leaves, and the fibrous lichen which hangs in long yellowish-grey tufts from the fir-trees and bears the name of "chamois-beard." While browsing on this, they sometimes get their horns hooked in a bough, and so, being unable to disentangle themselves, perish with hunger. The senses of hearing, smell, and sight are exceedingly acute; so that the hunter must exercise all his craft to approach the animals. Pages might be filled with the hair-breadth escapes and fearful accidents which have befallen hunters; and yet they find the pursuit so fascinating that nothing will induce them to abandon it. A young peasant told the famous De Saussure (the pioneer of Alpine explorers) that though his father and grandfather before him had met their death while out on the hunt, not even the offer of a fortune would tempt him to change his vocation. The bag which he carried with him he called his winding-sheet, because he felt sure he would never have any other. Two years afterwards he was found dead at the foot of a precipice. [19] Bonar on Chamois-hunting in Bavaria. The bouquetin, or steinbock, once abundant throughout the greater part of the Alps, is now confined to certain parts where it is preserved by the King of Italy. De Saussure observes that in his time they had ceased to be found near Chamouni. Its whole build is remarkably strong, giving it quite a different appearance from the slender and graceful chamois. [Illustration: RED DEER. AFTER ANSDELL.] The roe, the fallow deer, and the red deer have, it is said, quite disappeared from the French and Swiss Alps, but all of them occur in the Bavarian and Austrian highlands. They frequent the forests which clothe the lower slopes, and do not often wander into the more rocky districts. The wild boar only now and then appears across the Rhine, although it is common in the Subalpine forests farther east; but we can hardly consider it a true Alpine quadruped.