CHAPTER III 



THE WHITETAIL DEER; AND THE BLACKTAIL OF THE 

 COLUMBIA 



THE whitetail deer is much the commonest game 

 animal of the United States, being still found, 

 though generally in greatly diminished numbers, 

 throughout most of the Union. It is a shrewd, 

 wary, knowing beast ; but it owes its prolonged stay 

 in the land chiefly to the fact that it is an inveter- 

 ate skulker, and fond of the thickest cover. Ac- 

 cordingly it usually has to be killed by stealth and 

 stratagem, and not by fair, manly hunting; being 

 quite easily slain in any one of half a dozen un- 

 sportsmanlike ways. In consequence I care less for 

 its chase than for the chase of any other kind of 

 American big game. Yet in the few places where 

 it dwells in open, hilly forests and can be killed by 

 still-hunting as if it were a blacktail ; or, better still, 

 where the nature of the ground is such that it can 

 be run down in fair chase on horseback, either with 

 greyhounds, or with a pack of trackhounds, it yields 

 splendid sport. 



Killing a deer from a boat while the poor animal 

 is swimming in the water, or on snpwshoes as it 

 flounders helplessly in the deep drifts, can only be 

 (50) 



