96 LETTERS FROM THE BACKWOODS. 



yet gentle eyes towards his place of ambush. With a 

 double-barreled gun, loaded with forty buck shot, he 

 fired at her. With a sudden bound she cleared the 

 bank, and sped unharmed away. 



The effect of a noble deer, on one who has never 

 seen one in the forest, is most singular. The gentle- 

 man with whom I stopped told some anecdotes of 

 New Yorkers, that were almost incredible. A fine 

 deer throwing his proud antlers through the forest, 

 as he outstrips the wind in his flight, is a beautiful 

 sight. To kill one, as he thus springs away in all the 

 pride of freedom, seems downright cruelty; and one's 

 heart always relents when the deed is done, unless 

 long practice has rendered him accustomed to it. But 

 the hunter laughs at such sentiment, and can see no 

 difference between killing a deer and a lamb. 



A gentleman who had never seen a deer in his na- 

 tive forest, told me that, being stationed in a place 

 with his gun where one was expected to pass, he saw 

 him approach and retire without molestation. He 

 heard a crashing through the under-brush, and the 

 next moment a noble buck bounded past him, with all 

 that beauty and strength for which the deer is re- 

 markable. He gazed on him as he rose and fell in his 

 long bounds through the forest, in such perfect ad- 

 miration, that he forgot he had a gun. It never 

 occurred to him that such a noble animal was to be 

 shot, until he was out of his reach. " Why," said he, 

 "I could not have killed him if my life had depended 

 on it." 



The instinct with which God has endowed the deer 



