Deer-Hunting on the Am Sable. 243 



insurance man, and an excellent spot to hang wet clothes. Else- 

 where it was as cold as charity, and I supplemented my blankets 

 with my heavy frieze ulster, and went to sleep to dream of giant 

 bucks and a rifle that wouldn't go off. 



The Michigan forests abound in a variety of game, but the ani- 

 mals that are valued for their fur have been thinned out by trappers, 

 who, in turn, have disappeared to newer hunting-fields. One still 

 finds the beaver, marten, fisher, lynx, and others. Bears are quite 

 numerous, and there are plenty of wolves. Rabbits and Arctic hares 

 and ruffed grouse exist in great numbers. The elk has almost 

 wholly disappeared from the peninsula, but I heard that some were 

 occasionally found in the extreme northern portion, and I saw a 

 magnificent pair of antlers, having a spread of nearly six feet, which a 

 half-breed had found imbedded in the trunk of a cedar-tree. The 

 skin of the head and the greater portion of the skull were attached, 

 the remainder having been torn away and scattered by wolves. 

 The deer of the region is the Cervus Virginianus, or common deer 

 of America, which is distributed over such a large area of our conti- 

 nent. It probably attains its greatest weight in Michigan. I learned, 

 from credible sources, of bucks which weighed over two hundred and 

 fifty pounds. Judge John Dean Caton, in his admirable work on the 

 deer and antelope of America, speaks of having killed a buck in 

 Wisconsin that was estimated to weigh two hundred and fifty pounds, 

 and adds that the largest common deer of which he had any authentic 

 account was killed in Michigan and weighed, undressed, two hun- 

 dred and forty-six pounds. Of the deer killed by our party, there 

 were no less than three that weighed over two hundred and twenty- 

 five pounds. It is the most beautiful of the cervidce, and in its 

 graceful carriage, its exquisite agility, and the delicacy and sym- 

 metry of its form, no other animal approaches it. It varies some- 

 what, of course ; but the buck, with the shorter legs, the rounded 

 and compact body, the tapering nose and the well-erected, open 

 antlers is the proudest and handsomest animal of the forest. The 

 eye of the deer is large and has the softest and most tender of ex- 

 pressions. The marked convexity of the ball, the deep, calm, and 

 gentle radiance of the iris, and the length of the shadow-line from 

 the larmier to the posterior angle of the lids make up the more obvi- 

 ous anatomy of this amiability. In the rutting season, which occurs 



