550 FOREST, FIELD, AND PRAIRIE. 



zlies and animals that kill hard, the charge of powder is very small, 

 and consequently the driving power not very great. Like the 

 " feather weight " of the prize ring, it puts in its " taps " rapidly 

 and often ; but we think the animal has the least chance with the 

 ponderous bone smasher, with its heavy charge of powder and ball, 

 whose first blow tells. An old expert says : 



In hunting on the plains and in the Rocky Mountain country — 

 and the best big game hunting for the rifle, is west of the Missouri, 

 and not east of the AUeghanies — I have found that one hundred 

 yards was a short range compared to most of the distances at 

 which game is killed. I have hunted deer from the Wind River 

 Mountains in northwestern Wyoming Territory to the extreme 

 southwestern part of New Mexico, and my experience has been, that 

 most of the deer I have shot myself, or seen shot by others, were 

 killed over one hundred yards, and many over two hundred yards 

 (measured, for always when I can, I pace off the distance). I re- 

 fer more particularly to black-tail deer, as the white-tail deer keep 

 more in the timber, or in the thickets along the stream bottoms, 

 and are therefore shot generally at shorter distances. I mean the 

 black-tail of the hunters in the Rocky Mountain country {Cervis 

 Macrovis) called by naturalists the mule deer, and not Cervis 

 Columbianus, the black-tail of the natucalists, which is found 

 farther west than the Rocky Mountains. (By the way, what im- 

 pertinence and presumption on the part of eastern naturalists to 

 try and dictate to us about the names of these deer, and to call the 

 black-tail the mule deer, and the Columbia River deer the only 

 true black-tail.) One of my rifles, which I used for hunting in 

 the Far West, a Springfield, fifty calibre resighted, restocked, etc., 

 by a western gunsmith, is so sighted that its point blank range is 

 over one hundred and fifty yards, as most of the game at which I 

 used it, especially antelope, were shot from one hundred and fifty 

 to three hundred yards. The farthest I ever killed an' elk dead, 

 was four hundred yards (which I paced). I have seen many 

 hunters on the plains have their rifles so sighted as to have a point 

 blank of nearly two hundred yards, thus making a very good rifle 

 for antelope or elk. Elevating sights are an abomination and a 

 delusion, on a hunting rifle. 



Guns to carry Ball. — In the timber, where game is shot at 



