106 GAME THAT FEED BY NIGHT. 



everywhere, concurrently with an unfailing sense of 

 direction which unconsciously to himself guides its 

 possessor in his wanderings, with an accuracy almost 

 as unvarying as the mariner's compass points the course 

 which the navigator has to follow across the sea in 

 order to reach a certain point upon the coast. 



In consequence of the short distance to which the 

 range of vision is restricted in a forest, it is by no 

 means unusual to meet with very numerous and recent 

 traces of game without any of the creatures themselves 

 being visible for most forest animals retire to the 

 thickets to lie down in safe concealment during the 

 day time, and only come forth at sunset. It is probable 

 that the greater part of the night is then passed in 

 feeding and moving about, and that soon after sunrise 

 they again seek cover for the day; this is specially 

 so in districts where game is much persecuted by 

 hunters, above all by still -hunters. 



Such at all events seems to be the general concensus 

 of opinion among experienced sportsmen in every part 

 of the world. Sir Samuel Baker, for instance, distinctly 

 asserts that it is so under an equatorial sun in Ceylon. 

 Mr. Van Dyke is still more emphatic about it as regards 

 North American game of the temperate zone, and 

 considers, very rightly as we believe, that there is 

 nothing that tends to make game wilder than the practice 

 of still-hunting, or creeping silently up to within shot, 

 and unexpectedly opening fire upon animals resting in 

 fancied security from the assaults of man, their most 

 redoubtable enemy 



" for (he says) it is a settled fact, of which you must never 

 lose sight, that a deer's habits and movements will be very 

 much and very quickly influenced by still-hunting." "Right 



