^BOUNCI^'G' DEER. 109 



perfectly quiet. This method is quite as objectionable 

 as the traps and wires, by means of which English 

 poachers capture hares and rabbits. 



When the weather is so warm as to render a tramp 

 through the woods on foot impracticable, ' bouncing ' or 

 'jumping' deer is good sport. I prefer it next to still- 

 hunting, inasmuch as it does not disturb the deer very 

 much. The months of June, July, and August are 

 best fitted for this sport, because the nights are generally 

 moonlight, so that the deer feed only between sunset 

 and sunrise, lying close in the thickets during the day. 

 The bucks are then in their best condition. 



During these hot months the water holes on the open 

 prairies are dried up by the fierce sun, and the bucks 

 seek shelter from the heat, as well as from the attacks 

 of millions of mosquitoes and gadflies, amongst the tall 

 reeds and flags in swampy ground. While thus con- 

 cealed, they lie so close together that the hunter is on 

 them before he becomes aware of their presence ; in 

 fact, on more than one occasion, my horse has stumbled 

 against their bodies before they have jumped. Some- 

 times they are found singly, sometimes two or three 

 will spring up close together. On other occasions I 

 have known ten or fifteen leap out of a very small 

 thicket ; and, more than once, I have tumbled over a 

 pair of fine fat bucks right and left, as though they 

 had been rabbits kicked out of a piece of rough grass 

 in an English park or warren. 



