SPORT ON THE GANDER AND THE GULL 257 



the country to the east. He remained up in the branches for 

 ten minutes, and then descended. Just as his feet touched 

 the ground, I heard an unusual noise of some sort. Joe 

 stood rigid, and asked me if I had heard anything, to which 

 I replied that I thought I had detected a low grunt. We 

 stood listening intently, when over his shoulder I saw a great 

 stag walking slowly towards us out of the timber. We 

 crouched low at once, and he came on, giving me an easy 

 shot at 50 yards, the sort of chance which could not be 

 missed. The stag ran fully 100 yards after receiving the 

 bullet through the heart, and then turned a somersault and 

 fell dead. I rushed up to the fallen one, which I felt sure 

 was an exceptional head, but was much disappointed to find 

 that this was not the case. The deer itself was the largest 

 I had ever seen, but the tops of the horns, which had been 

 thrown back as the animal came towards me and were in 

 consequence out of view, were exceedingly poor. We took 

 a haunch, the shank skins for moccasins, and the head, and 

 were back in camp at one. 



The following day Joe and I were following a wooded 

 stream up towards Great Rattling Brook, ten miles to the 

 north, when I saw a large doe feeding on dead alder leaves, 

 and stood to watch her. She picked each leaf off daintily, 

 and kept looking up the brook as if waiting for another deer 

 to appear. We naturally inferred that there must be a stag 

 with her at this season, and so sat down and waited for fully 

 an hour without hearing a bush shake or a stick crack. 



" I think we go on," said Joe at last, and we rose to 

 proceed, at the same time showing ourselves to the doe. 

 There was a loud crash close by, and I could just see the 

 white stern of a big stag as it sprang from the bank into 

 the stream and dashed away. Running forward, I found a 

 clearing, and had a good sight of the stag, which I saw at 



R 



