THE KROTENKOPF AND THE KRAMER. 367 



THE distance a wounded animal will sometimes go before leaving, 

 on the ground over which he has passed, any trace that he has been 

 hit, is most extraordinary, and in some cases appears to me 

 quite inexplicable. But a week or two before penning this note, 

 four or five deer suddenly crossed my path one evening, as I was re- 

 turning home through the woods. They were a great distance off; 

 but as they stopped to gaze for a moment, I took my chance and 

 fired. I was sure that I had hit the deer, and as they all passed 

 among the trees, I felt still more certain from a peculiar motion I 

 observed in one of them. I followed the slot across the snow, but 

 saw nothing. But still, not convinced that I had missed, I kept going 

 on and on, and at last saw a single red drop on the white surface of 

 the ground. A little further there were more; presently, on one 

 side of the slot there was a perfect crimson shower; and a moment 

 or two after, the deer was seen stretched out quite dead. 



Sometimes a part of the intestines will protrude, and close up the 

 opening which the bullet has made, and then of course it is no 

 wonder the trickling of the blood should cease. But the hemorrhage 

 takes place inwardly, and, after following the slot for many hundred 

 yards, and when perhaps you have given up all hope, you will very 

 likely find the stag in a thicket quite dead, or lying in the middle of 

 a stream, his strength having failed him in making a last effort to 

 leap across. 



It requires an experienced eye however to detect a drop or two of 

 blood, amid the dead leaves with which the ground in the forest is 

 covered; and where the earth is hard, or strewn with the dry 

 foliage of the preceding summer, it is difficult even to make out the 

 slot at all ; and yet by practice you at last discern the slightest im- 

 print in the ground, and recognize in a moment if it has been made 

 by a deer or not. 



When following the slot of an animal that you think you have 

 wounded, without finding on the ground any traces of his being so, 

 it is well, should he pass through a thicket, to examine the boughs 

 he has brushed against in forcing his way through. The branches 

 hang closed upon his broad sides, and a leaf may have swept over 



