258 HUNTING TRIPS 



stantaneously fatal places are the brain and 

 any part of the spinal column; but these 

 offer such small marks that it is usually only 

 by accident they are hit. The mark at 

 any part of which one can fire with safety 

 is a patch about eight inches or a foot 

 square, including the shoulder-blades, 

 lungs, and heart. A kidney-shot is very 

 fatal ; but a black-tail will go all day with a 

 bullet through his entrails, and in cold 

 weather I have known one to run several 

 miles with a portion of its entrails sticking 

 out of a wound and frozen solid. To break 

 both shoulders by a shot as the deer stands 

 sideways to the hunter, brings the buck 

 down in its tracks; but perhaps the best 

 place at which to aim is the point in the 

 body right behind the shoulder-blade. On 

 receiving a bullet in this spot the deer will 

 plunge forward for a jump or two, and then 

 go some fifty yards in a labored gallop; 

 will then stop, sway unsteadily on its legs for 

 a second, and pitch forward on its side. 

 [When the hunter comes up he will find his 



