MAN AS THE GREAT DESTROYER. 177 



to gloss over the fact, he is the most destructive of all 

 such creatures. See how whole races of valuable, 

 beautiful, and harmless birds and animals have been 

 exterminated by him ! 



Returning however to the consideration of the subject 

 of forest hunting we must give a short account of 

 its practice in winter, and especially in snow-time. In 

 the forests of the temperate zone a great deal of the 

 vegetation is of a deciduous nature, and until the fall 

 of the leaf the cover is often so dense that hunting 

 is conducted under many difficulties; moreover it is 

 during this season that the young of both birds and 

 beasts are being reared, so that most of the game is 

 regarded as out of season. Nature therefore seems to 

 indicate the autumn and winter months as the most 

 seasonable time for the human hunter to follow his 

 favourite sport. 



" Many of the best still-hunters" (says Mr. Van 

 Dyke) " will not hunt at all until snow comes, and in 

 the Eastern or North Western States (of America) the 

 season may be said to commence only ' when snow 

 flies,' as they say in the woods." * And from the 

 delightfully clear beautiful weather that often comes 

 on after and between the snow falls, and the complete 

 absence of those terrible insect pests which in many 

 places render life in the woods a martyrdom during 

 the summer season, there can be no doubt that, taken 

 all in all, the winter hunt is the pleasantest of the whole 

 year. 



It might be supposed that the cold would prove un- 

 endurable and dangerous to health; but experience 

 shows that in general the very reverse is the case, 



* The Still-Hunter, by Theodore S. Van Dyke, 1888, p. 122. 

 VOL. III. 12 



