THE WHITETAIL DEER 213 



occasionally pitching forward across a stump or root, was 

 a thing to be remembered. It was my first deer, and 

 I was very glad to get it; but although only a boy, I had 

 sense enough to realize that it was not an experience 

 worth repeating. The paddler in such a case deserves 

 considerable credit, but the shooter not a particle, even 

 aside from the fact to which I have already alluded, 

 that in too many cases such shooting results in the killing 

 of nursing does. No matter how young a sportsman is, 

 if he has a healthy mind, he will not long take pleasure 

 in any method of hunting in which somebody else shows 

 the skill and does the work so that his share is only nomi- 

 nal. The minute that sport is carried on on these terms 

 it becomes a sham, and a sham is always detrimental to 

 all who take part in it. 



Whitetail are comparatively easily killed with 

 hounds, and there are very many places where this is 

 almost the only way they can be killed at all. Formerly 

 in the Adirondacks this method of hunting was carried 

 on under circumstances which rendered those who took 

 part in it objects of deserved contempt. The sportsman 

 stood in a boat while his guides put out one or two hounds 

 in the chosen forest side. After a longer or shorter run 

 the deer took to the water; for whitetail are excellent 

 swimmers, and when pursued by hounds try to shake 

 them off by wading up or down stream or by swimming 

 across a pond, and, if tired, come to bay in some pool 

 or rapid. Once the unfortunate deer was in the water, 

 the guide rowed the boat after it. If it was yet early in 

 the season, and the deer was still in the red summer 



