282 SPORTING ADVENTURES 



directions, and made a circuit with them for several hundred 

 yards about his small farm, and he found after a while that 

 the deer, much to his satisfaction, deserted the immediate 

 neighbourhood and let his crops grow without attempting 1 to 

 molest them. I have heard of other forest ranchers who 

 adopted the same method of protecting their gardens, and they 

 found it successful. This antipathy between deer and sheep 

 is so strong that the former will even avoid salt licks and 

 sulphur springs, of which they seem madly fond, if the latter 

 graze about them or leave their droppings near them. 



Hunters who are in the vicinity of these springs or " licks" 

 kill more deer than they could elsewhere, as the animals fre- 

 quent them both morning and evening, and revel in the 

 dainties they afford. If a person is well concealed, and to the 

 leeward, he may slay many a fine buck or graceful doe 

 during the evening or early morning, near these places, for 

 they do not readily take alarm at the report of a rifle or shot- 

 gun. The latter is by far the most effective weapon for forest 

 shooting, as the woods are so dense and the shrubbery so 

 matted that a rifle-ball is readily deflected from a straight 

 course by intervening bushes, whereas some of the buck-shot 

 is almost sure of reaching its destination. A ten-bore, weigh- 

 ing about ten pounds, would prove a capital arm for deer 

 shooting, as it is good up to a range of ninety or one hundred 

 yards ; and it is seldom that one can see an animal beyond that 

 distance in the forest, or fire at it with any degree of success. 



I have tried both rifle and shot-gun in these North-western 

 woods, and found that I made my best bags with the latter, 

 and where I made two misses with one I made none with the 

 other. For shooting in the open, however, the rifle is much 

 the better, as the deer, if hunted much, are shy and vigilant, 

 and, unless surprised, rarely allow a person to approach them 

 to less than two or three hundred yards, except by the most 

 careful stalking. 



The white-tail, which is largely pursued with hounds in the 

 far North-west, affords many a splendid run to both dogs and 

 hunters, for the latter must not allow the grass to grow under 

 their feet if they would get a shot at it as it dashes through 

 the woods. Its numbers enable nearly all persons, even in a 



