188 GAME. 



bag them. It was useless to hunt on foot, as the high 

 grass and bushes completely concealed the movements of 

 the deer, which would lie so close, and sneak away so 

 silently, that the hunter was never aware of the near 

 vicinity of his game. Hunting on horseback with rifle 

 was equally out of the question ; for though a deer was 

 occasionally seen, it was but the most momentary 

 glance. 



After repeated failures I struck upon a means of out- 

 witting them. Seated in a light, strong waggon, and with 

 another person to drive, I passed slowly, shot-gun in 

 hand, through the long grass and willows. From my 

 elevated position I could occasionally see a brown form, 

 sneaking swiftly and silently away, sometimes only a few 

 feet from the horse's head. A charge of buckshot deve- 

 loped this form into a deer, and during the winter I was 

 enabled to add to my bag several fine animals which I 

 could have got in no other way. 



As a rule, the red deer, wherever found, is a lover 

 and frequenter of thickets, and I have never met him 

 very far away from cover of some kind. 



The variation in size is not easily accounted for, but 

 it exists in quite as remarkable a degree as in mankind. 

 In the Black Hills of Dakota this inequality in size is 

 more marked than in any other locality in which I have 

 hunted. In the same day's hunt a sportsman may 

 bag a mammoth buck of over 200 pounds, and another 

 buck, equally old, equally fat, which will scarcely weigh 

 seventy-five pounds. On Eapid Creek I bagged two 

 bucks which, closely dressed, neck and legs cut off, yet 

 weighed about 130 pounds each. On Box Elder, the 

 next stream, and only ten miles north, was killed a 

 little buck, well antlered and very fat, which, dressed 

 in the same way as the others, scarcely weighed forty 

 pounds. Yet these are undoubtedly the very same 

 animals. Deer precisely similar in every particular, 

 except size, are to be found filling all the intervals from 



