DEER HUNTING. 245 



from the strange and almost mysterious skill which it requires, 

 and from the pride of conscious ability which you derive from 

 tracking up a blind trail, by signs wholly invisible to unfamiliar 

 eyes, to a successful and triumphant issue. 



No written instructions can give this lore to the tyro ; nothing 

 but long practice, and the closest experience, can give to the eye 

 of man the ability to follow the path of the devious and pastur- 

 ing Deer, through every variety of soil and surface, with a cer- 

 tainty as unerring as that attained by the nose of the Blood- 

 hound. 



The least foot-print on the moist earth, nay, the merest punc- 

 ture by the sharp extremity of the cloven hoof in a displaced 

 dead leaf, shall tell the experienced eye how long since, at what 

 pace, whether sauntering in pursuit of food, or dallying with 

 his hinds, or flying from his foes, the noble hart has passed, and 

 thence whether the pursuit is worth trying, and success possi- 

 ble. Not the bark of a birch tree frayed by his hoi'ns, not a 

 dewdrop dashed from the brushwood, not a leaf browzed, or a 

 moss-tuft ruffled on the fallen cedar, must be unnoticed, not a 

 well-head in which he might have drank, or a stream-pool in 

 which he might have wallowed, must be unvisited. The 

 slightest variations of surface, the changes of the growth of tim- 

 ber, the qualities of the lying ground, and the feeding ground, 

 the hours of the day, the situation of the sun, the shifts of the 

 wind, must be known and noted. The wisdom of the serpent 

 and the stealthiness of the cougar, crawling upon his prey, must 

 be imitated ; and to one truly skilled, and endowed with all the 

 qualities of head and hand, of eye and foot, the patience of hun- 

 ger and thirst, the endurance of fatigue, and the indifference to 

 heat or cold, there is no surer method, and certainly, to my ap- 

 prehension, none so sportsmanlike or scientific, practised in the 

 Eastern, Midland, or Western States, as still hunting, which 

 may indeed be dignified by the name of American Deer 

 Stalking. 



It is, however, so difficult, that an apt and observant scholar 

 shall require many seasons of apprenticeship to a wise wood- 



