FOREST SPORTS. 205 



ever, that, in the wooded fastnesses through which the chase 

 ever Hes, it is utterly impossible to keep the hounds in hearing, 

 and that they could only serve to render the swift and wary 

 quarry swifter and warier yet, it will be at once apparent that 

 hounds must be dispensed with in this species of hunting. 



The craft of the woodman, therefore, and an accurate know- 

 ledge of the habits of his game, are the only aids on which the 

 hunter can rely ; but by these, and the aid of weather to boot, 

 he will find little difficulty, beyond that fatigue and roughing 

 which give its chiefest zest to life in the woods, in bringing 

 these an lered monarchs of the northern wilderness, within range 

 of the unei'ring rifle. 



During the rutting season, in the summer months, there are 

 two methods by whiqh the Moose may be taken with something 

 approaching very nearly to certainty, by those acquainted with 

 the country, and with the instincts of the creature. At this 

 period of the year, like all others of the Deer species, the Moose 

 is terribly infested and tormented by insects, especially by that 

 pest of the woodland wilderness, the black fly, and is in the 

 habit of resorting to the ponds and lakelets, which are inter- 

 spersed every where among his forest haunts, for refuge from 

 his blood-sucking enemies. Here he will wade out as far as 

 long legs will carry him, and with his head only above the cool 

 surface, will wallow about for hours, secure from his winged 

 foes, browsing deliciously on the floating leaves and buds of the 

 various kinds of lotus, water-lily, and other aquatic plants, and 

 luxuriating in the coolness of the pure element. Of this habit 

 the hunter makes fatal use. Concealing himself before the first 

 dappling of the eastern sky, well to leeward of the trail, by 

 which he has previously ascertained, by ocular proof, that the 

 Moose enters his forest bath, he quietly awaits his coming, listen- 

 ing with watchful ears to the slightest crack of the dry twigs, 

 the lowest rustle of the parted branches ; and is for the most 

 part rewarded by a point-blank shot at the huge, unsuspecting 

 quarry. 



Another, and yet more fatal method, by which man treache- 



