The Black-Tail Deer. 161 



is very hard and dry, or frozen solid, on which almost any 

 man will be at fault. But any one with a little practice 

 can learn to do a certain amount of tracking. On snow, 

 of course, it is very easy ; but on the other hand it is also 

 peculiarly difficult to avoid being seen by the deer when 

 the ground is white. After deer have been frightened 

 once or twice, or have even merely been disturbed by 

 man, they get the habit of keeping a watch back on their 

 trail ; and when snow has fallen, a man is such a con- 

 spicuous object deer see him a long way off, and even the 

 tamest become wild. A deer will often, before lying 

 down, take a half circle back to one side and make its bed 

 a few yards from its trail, where it can, itself unseen, 

 watch any person tracing it up. A man tracking in snow 

 needs to pay very little heed to the footprints, which can 

 be followed without effort, but requires to keep up the 

 closest scrutiny over the ground ahead of him, and on 

 either side of the trail. 



In the early morning when there is a heavy dew the 

 footprints will be as plain as possible in the grass, and can 

 then be followed readily ; and in any place where the 

 ground is at all damp they will usually be plain enough to 

 be made out without difficulty. When the ground is hard 

 or dry the work is very much less easy, and soon becomes 

 so difficult as not to be worth while following up. Indeed, 

 at all times, even in the snow, tracks are chiefly of use to 

 show the probable locality in which a deer may be found ; 

 and the still-hunter instead of laboriously walking along 

 a trail will do far better to merely follow it until, from its 

 freshness and direction, he feels confident that the deer is 



