98 THE COMMON AMEBIC AN DEEE. 



this, but imagined that my eyes were as good as my 

 neighbom's' ; but, before I had hunted long, I discovered 

 that it was just as I had been told. I was not quite so 

 sharp-sighted as I fancied myself, and it was many a 

 long day before I was able to discover the deer before 

 they detected my presence. 



However, after a good deal of practice, with much 

 patience, together with valuable hints from old and 

 experienced hunters, with whom I frequently associated 

 in a day's ramble through the woods, or joined in 

 camp hunts, extending sometimes over two or three 

 weeks, a month, or even longer, I gained much more 

 experience and knowledge of hunter-craft than I had 

 the least idea was necessary, when I first took up that 

 line of business. 



Long before the pale-face, with his deadly rifle, in- 

 truded on the Indian hunting grounds, the capture of 

 the common deer exercised all the ingenuity and 

 patience of the red-skin warrior. From the number of 

 flint arrow-heads turned up by the plough, where the 

 land has been cultivated, it is pretty evident that the 

 bow was in general use throughout the North American 

 continent. A gentleman who travelled in Florida, in- 

 forms us that the Indians in that region seldom shot 

 at a deer beyond twenty-five or thirty yards distance, 

 exercising great caution before they ventured to dis- 

 charge their arrows. The result, however, was generally 

 favourable to the hunter. 



