MODES OF HUNTING DEEPw 95 



heart to my friend, Colonel A , who merely re- 

 marked : — 



' Ah I the beast ran as long as it could hold its 

 breath, but dropped the moment it respired. They 

 often do so.' 



A most extraordinary case is reported by a physician 

 of Virginia. He was very fond of the chase, and had 

 one morning the good fortune to kill a buck in capital 

 condition. On opening the animal he made the 

 wonderful discovery, that at some time durino- the 

 animal's life — evidently a lono- time back — its heart had 

 been transfixed by an elder-stalk which was still em- 

 bedded in it. The wounds had entirely healed without 

 any trace of inflammation or disease in the substances 

 through which the stalk had penetrated. 



If a deer has one of its hind legs broken it is still 

 enabled to proceed, with great swiftness, on the re- 

 maining three ; and more than once they have escaped 

 me even when mounted and on the open prairie, — the 

 lono' orrass and broken hogf-wallow crround beinof much 

 more in their favour than in mine. 



The methods most commonly employed to capture 

 deer are stalking or ^ still-hunting,' as the hunters of 

 the Southern States call it — driving with hounds while 

 the hunters take up posts where they think the animal 

 will pass ; * jumping ' or ' bouncing ' deer : together with 

 the cowardly, unfair, and dangerous practice of fire- 

 hunting. That which will be most to the taste of those 



