160 NIGHT HUNTING. 



of human investigation, upon science, philosophy, politics, 

 religion, morals ; and leave to little minds to settle the ques- 

 tion of consistency or change. Let his be the eagle's flight 

 towards the sun, and theirs to skim in darkness along the 

 ground, like the course of the mousing owl." 



After it became dark, Smith and Martin went out around 

 the lake night hunting, and the rest retired to our tents. 

 We heard the report of Smith's rifle from time to time, and 

 concluded that we should have to court-martial him for a 

 wanton destruction of deer, contrary to the law we had 

 established for our government on that subject. But on his 

 return, we ascertained that, though having had several shots, 

 he had succeeded in killing or, according to Martin's account, 

 even wounding but one, and that a yearling, and the poorest 

 and leanest we had seen since we entered the woods. 

 Though it was thus diminutive in size, Smith declared that 

 he had seen, and shot at, some of the largest deer that ever 

 roamed the forest. He insisted that he had seen some, by 

 the side of which the largest we had looked upon by day- 

 light, were mere fawns, and thereupon he undertook to esta- 

 blish a theory that the large deer fed by night and the 

 smaller ones by day. This would have been all well 

 enough, were it not for the fact, understood by every expe- 

 rienced night-hunter, that by the spectral and uncertain 

 light of the lamp, or torch, a deer, when seen standing in 

 the water, or on the reedy banks, is in appearance magnified 

 to twice its actual dimensions. To this Smith at last 



