18 HINTS ON FOKEST AND PRAIRIE LIFE. 



kidneys can be grilled on the hot coals, or a deer's 

 head baked in a forest oven. 



This oven is simply a hole dug in the ground, and 

 heated by making a fire in and over it. When it is 

 thoroughly hot, the head is wrapped in moss or long 

 grass, and placed in the hole over which the embers are 

 then raked back. Of course the skin is not taken off 

 until the head is cooked, which takes at least a couple 

 of hours to accomplish. It then peels off nicely ; the 

 meat smokes on the bark dish ; and, with just a sprink- 

 ling of red pepper on it, is a feast fit for anyone in the 

 world. 



On the prairies the hunter's life is very similar, 

 although the game is slightly different. Instead of 

 bears and turkeys, the hunter kills buffaloes, or more 

 properly bisons, and prong-horned antelopes. 



There are few real prairies * to be found on the east 

 side of the Mississippi ; but on the western side of that 

 mighty stream they extend longitudinally from the ice- 

 bound coast of the Arctic Ocean, to the warm waters of 

 the Gulf of Mexico. The Eastern States are, as a rule, 

 heavily timbered; the open ground being generally 

 swampy. The little glades of high ground are, from 

 their small age, unworthy of the name of prairie. 

 According to Humboldt, the true prairie country con- 

 tains an area of 2,430,000 square miles. 



* Nothing more than forest glades, not prairies as understood in 

 America, though they may be meadows. 



