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ill till parts of the valley of the Ottawa, and between the Ottawa and 

 St. Lawrence, in such places as the hardwoods and swamps are large 

 enough to afford them shelter. They roam through the hard woo Js and 

 hemlock ridges in summer ; and establish their yai'ds, if possible, in a 

 tamaiack swamp in winter. About thirty yeai-s ago I saw a deer yard 

 stretching from Bearbrook away beyond the Castor River, in the Town- 

 ship of Osgoode. It must have been, at least, four miles square, and 

 must have contained hundreds of deer. This yard was completely 

 intersected by paths branching oS in every direction, and beaten hard 

 enough to carry a horse. Deer yards may be found in the same section 

 of the country still ; but like the red-skinned herds of woodland beauties 

 which formerly made the wilderness gloi'ious, they have been perceptibly 

 growing smaller and smaller, and a well beaten deer yard of ten acres 

 in extent within twelve miles of Ottawa' is to-day no mean represen- 

 tative of the widely trodden haunts of the Virginian deer in the near 

 past. The multiplication of hunters, superinduced by arms of precision, 

 and the expertness acquired by practice in volunteer companies — but 

 above all, the lawless assassins who slaughter them, male and female 

 old and young, on the crust during deep snow — have tended, legally 

 and illegally, to do more than decimate the magnificent denizens of the 

 forests surrounding the City of Ottawa. The unavoidable clearing 

 away for agricultural purposes, and the culpable destruction by bush 

 tires of the foi-ests in many places, have driven the deer back to more, 

 distant haunts. The wolf too, although not a bit more sanguinaiy in 

 his destructive instincts than the lawless crust hunter, has done his 

 share in thinning out the deer in the valley of the Ottawa. Still, it is 

 astonishing to know that, notwithstanding all these adverse influences, 

 thei-e are yet large numbers of them on both sides of the Ottawa River, 

 and in the forests boidering upon its many lax'ge tributaries. In summer 

 the Virginian deer delights to hang around clearings for the purpose of 

 feeding on grass, clover, turnips and potatoes. In former times many 

 of them were killed from scaffolds by night watchers in turnip and 

 potato fields. I have not time to give a description of the various 

 modes of deer hunting. As a sportsman, I would scorn to refer in a 

 desci-iptive manner to fire hunting or crust hunting. Of the two 

 legitimate methods, still hunting and hound hunting, I prefer the latter 



