HUNTING ACROSS THE DANUBE : MAGYAR AMERICAN BOOK REVIEW

author: Peter Lewis Horn

First, I admit that I have not read this book word for word as I usually do, that I scanned it looking for locations I'd know from a map or genealogy search.  I am not a hunter.  If I had to kill an animal myself in order to eat I'd probably do so in the insanity of starvation. Then I would feel myself to be an animal as well. But I'm no radical vegan. I'm convinced my personal body needs meat due to a foray into food-combining vegetarianism that left me protein starved. I say this because those of you who are hunters - of wild boar, wolf, pheasant, stag, roebuck, mountain bear, and the CAPERCAILLE OFTHECARPATHIANS (What's that?!) - those of you who go after the few beast who've managed to live to an enormous old age - those of you into Couples Hunts, Ladies Hunts, THE KING'S SHOOT - who perhaps hunt in places where killing for sport is seen as a necessary culling of the limited wilderness - Those of you who go to Romania, Hungary and Transylvania, Lake Balaton - WILL GET INTO THIS BOOK!

It has blow by blow accounts of mud, rain, the obstacles of climbing and tracking, what takes cunning, as well as photo ops with dead animals and trophy racks.

Hint: Sheepherders will rat out a bear.

It's not my scene but maybe you'll want to read this book to self discover if it's yours.


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IS THAT PARTRIDGE IN A PEAR TREE HUNGARIAN?

WDFA-WA.GOV on HUNTING UPLAND BIRDS AND THE GREY PARTRIDGE

Excerpt from this article :

Making their American debut in the late-nineteenth century, these European imports were first released in Washington and California but are now found in huntable numbers in about a dozen Western and Midwestern states and most Canadian provinces. The first birds released in this country came from Hungary, so the gray partridge is also commonly known as Hungarian partridge, or Hun.

Gray partridges, which grow to just over a foot long and weigh about three-quarters of a pound, eat both cultivated grains and a variety of weed seeds, as well as clover and other green, leafy material. As is the case with pheasants and other upland bird species, young partridge feed heavily on crickets, ants, grasshoppers and other insects. They often inhabit the “margins” where agricultural fields and native shrub-steppe habitat meet. Classic Hungarian partridge country might be a field of corn or wheat stubble bordered or intersected by a couple of brushy draws or a gently-sloping hillside dotted with sagebrush. A small stream, pond or wetland nearby would likely make such a spot even more attractive to a covey of Huns.