18 BIG GAME SHOOTING 
explosive, and the merest touch will make them ‘ go off’ with a 
report loud enough to be heard in London. 
Damp weather is, then, the first essential for successful still 
hunting ; but even then, when the leaves crush noiselessly under 
foot and fallen twigs bend instead of snapping, the utmost 
patience and care are necessary. 
With a pair of good shooting boots, English made, with 
wide welts and plenty of nails in them—boots, for choice, which 
would run about two to the acre —with his rifle over his shoulder, 
and a handful of loose change in the pocket of his new 
American overalls, any average young man may go confidently 
into the best woods in America, certain that in a fortnight 
of hard work he will see nothing except what Van Dyke calls 
‘the long jumps’ (i.e. tracks of startled deer) or those waving 
white flags popping over the fallen logs which those gunners 
only may hope to stop who habitually shoot snipe with a 
Winchester. 
The man who is generally successful as a still hunter is he 
who knows the haunts and habits of the deer, who travels 
slowly in the woods, constantly stopping to listen and look 
ahead, who not only takes care to wear clothes of the softest 
material, with moccasins or tennis-shoes upon his feet, but who 
always has a hand ready to move an obstinate briar or obstruc- 
tive rampike gently out of his way before it has time to rasp 
against his clothes or trip him and pitch him upon his head. 
The first thing to remember in entering upon this sport is 
that every live thing in the woods is watching and listening at 
least three parts of its waking life, and that your only chance of 
success is to catch it off its guard in those rare moments when 
it is either feeding or moving, and therefore making a noise 
itself. Asmoving object is more easily seen than a stationary 
one, therefore do you stand or sit still from time to time 
among thick cover on some ridge or other commanding posi- 
tion, and watch the woods, peer through the thickets, and make 
certain that they are untenanted, before you blunder through 
hem. When a log upon which your eyes have been dwelling 
