15 2 The North American Cervidce. 



The Virginia deer seems equally at home among the mountains, 

 in the forest, or on the prairie. It delights in dense cover -in which 

 to rest, and in a prairie country conceals itself during the greater 

 portion of the day in the willowy thicket along the streams or among 

 the high grass of sloughs. 



From its wide distribution and the consequent variety of the loca- 

 tions in which it makes its home, it is hunted in a number of different 

 ways. Still hunting is the most legitimate as it is the most difficult 

 method. Hunting with hounds, as usually practiced in the South, 

 has much to recommend it. The dogs are put on the track of the 

 deer, and the hunters, armed with shot-guns, follow on horseback, 

 keeping as near the hounds as possible, and endeavoring, by cut- 

 ting across corners and riding chords of circles, to get within shot 

 of the fleeing animal. To successfully follow the chase through 

 forest, swamp, and canebrake, or along the rough mountain-sides, 

 requires courage, nerve, and a firm seat in the saddle, and no better 

 school of horsemanship could be devised than this method of deer 

 hunting. Its excellence was well shown during the early part of the 

 war, when the irregular Confederate cavalry, armed with double- 

 barreled shot-guns, were very troublesome to the Union forces. 

 Hounds are also employed to drive the deer to runways or to water. 

 It requires no very great degree of skill to shoot a deer as he runs by 

 within thirty or forty yards, and even less to kill one when swimming 

 in the water but a few feet from the boat. The latter method is there- 

 fore in high favor with the average summer tourist, who cares nothing 

 as to how his game is secured, provided only he can truthfully boast 

 that he has killed a deer. Jacking is a very pernicious method often 

 employed in summer or when deer are abundant. A lantern or fire 

 of some kind is carried, which discloses the position of the deer, 

 while the glare of the light dazzles it, and it stands gazing for a 

 longer or shorter period, giving the hunter an opportunity to shoot. 

 " Breasting" is employed where the deer make their home among 

 very high grass, such as is to be found on some of the prairies of the 

 South-west or in the great beds of the dry lakes which are to be 

 found in northern and western Nebraska. Here the thick cane-grass 

 stands seven or eight feet high, and the head of a mounted man is 

 only just visible above the tops. Several horsemen, armed with 

 shot-guns, form a line on the leeward side of the space to be hunted 



