DEER ON MOONLIGHT NIGHTS. ^ 97 



and alarm the game ; he should go against the wind as 

 an invariable rule. But though attention to all this 

 may contribute towards success, more is required to . 

 make a successful hunter. It is necessary to know 

 much of the habits of the birds or animals he pursues, 

 as well as the manner in which certain conditions of 

 weather influence them. In deer-hunting, the phases 

 of the moon must be studied with attention, for this 

 reason : when the moon is full, or nearly so, the deer 

 feed by its light, rising when it rises and couching 

 when it sets, hiding closely all day in the deepest 

 and most tangled thickets, so that the hunter will 

 scarcely find out except b}^ accident. On the other 

 hand, at times when the moon does not rise till 

 morning, and shines, though perhaps not visibly, during 

 the day, then the prairies and open glades are alive 

 with deer, and the hunter may count them by hun- 

 dreds where only a few days before he failed to 

 find one. 



Although the deer is a large animal, yet the colour 

 of his skin harmonizes so well with the foliage and 

 other objects by which he is surrounded, that it re- 

 quires a very practised eye to detect him readily. 

 When first I wandered in pursuit of deer in the 

 American wilderness, I was told that the first thing I 

 should see of the deer would be his tail, or ' flag,' as it 

 is called, waving in the air as he bounded ofi". Being a 

 young man and a fair shot, of course I did not believe 



