DEER HUNTING. 255 



the skin, upon his back, secures it with a strap, and 

 walks off in search of more game, well knowing that in 

 the immediate neighborhood, another at least is to be 

 found. 



Had the weather been warmer, the hunter would have 

 sought for the buck along the shadowy side of the hills. 

 Had it been the spring season, he would have led us 

 through some thick cane-brake, to the margin of some 

 remote lake, where you would have seen the deer im- 

 mersed to his head in the water, to save his body from the 

 tormenting attacks of moschettoes. Had winter over- 

 spread the earth with a covering of snow, he would have 

 searched the low damp woods, where the mosses and 

 lichens, on which at that period the deer feeds, abound, 

 the trees being generally crusted with them for several 

 feet from the ground. At one time, he might have 

 marked the places where the deer clears the velvet from 

 his horns by rubbing them against the low stems of bushes, 

 and where he frequently scrapes the earth with his fore- 

 hoofs ; at another, he would have betaken himself to 

 places where persimons and crab-apples abound, as be- 

 neath these trees the deer frequently stops to munch their 

 fruits. During early spring, our hunter would imitate 

 the bleating of the doe, and thus frequently obtain both 

 her and tbe fawn ; or, like some tribes of Indians, he 

 would prepare a deer's head, placed on a stick, and 

 creeping with it amongst the tall grass of the prairies, 

 would decoy the deer within reach of his rifle. But we 

 have seen enough of the still hunter. Let it suffice for 

 me to add, that by the mode pursued by him, thousands 

 of deer are annually killed, many individuals shooting 



