92 ANIMALS OP NORTH AMERICA. 



able numbers wherever the destruction of the forests, and 

 the wanton rapacity of man, have 

 not caused its extinction. In the 

 State of Maine and in Canada it 

 abounds in the great evergreen for- 

 ests, its worst enemy there being 

 m the wolf, as there is perhaps less of the 

 sporting ardor to be found in that sec- 

 tion. The loggers and lumbermen there, may occasionally filch 

 time to hunt, by torchlight, a deer or two, or get up a hunt 

 for a bet in which, by the way ? everything that flies or runs, 

 from an owl to a skunk, is brought to bag promiscuously 

 but hunting, proper and scientific, there is little or none. 



" To get deer-hunting in anything like perfection," says 

 Frank Forrester, " we must go into Virginia, the Carolinas, 

 Louisiana, and Mississippi, where the gentlemen of the land, 

 not pent up in cities, but dwelling upon their estates, fear- 

 lessly galloping through bush, through briar, taking bold 

 leaps at fallen trees and over deep bayous in the forest 

 lands, ride as fearlessly and desperately for the first blood 

 as any country English squire." 



The Indians say, and it has also been verified by hunters, 

 that the deer has a great aversion to snakes, especially the 

 rattlesnake, and to destroy them it makes a bound into the 

 air, alighting on the snake with all four feet brought together, 

 repeating it till the reptile is destroyed. The stomach of the 

 deer, with its half digested contents, is a very favorite dish 

 with the Indians, especially when they feed on mosses and buds, 

 and even Europeans have not objected to it. Captain Lyon 

 says he found it to " resemble a salad of sorrel and radishes; " 

 and Hearne says it possesses such an agreeable taste that were 

 it not for prejudice, it would be considered a dainty. 



De Kay says it has often been a wonder that while so many 

 horns are cast annually, so few are ever found. This is to be 

 explained by the fact that as soon as shed they are eaten up 



