HARVEST OF WILD PLACES 107 



The deer come to the wild apple trees most frequently 

 at night. Wherever there is an abandoned clearing or 

 secluded orchard near their ranges, they will find it out, 

 and in the morning after a snowfall, or more likely the 

 second day after, you will find their hoof-marks all 

 about the trees, and plentiful signs where they have 

 pawed up the snow and nozzled out the frozen fruit be- 

 neath. If I were the particular sort of "sportsman" 

 who shoots tame deer in Massachusetts during our open 

 week in November, I know a certain old apple tree far 

 back from the road in a nearly deserted township where 

 I should build a blind and sit comfortably down to wait 

 for the slaughter. But that is hardly the way in which I 

 wish to hunt them. It is almost inconceivable to me, 

 indeed, that the law should give any opportunity for the 

 destruction of these beautiful and harmless creatures, 

 the last of the larger four-footed wild things to roam our 

 eastern woods. Those who hunt them are com- 

 paratively few, if damnably destructive; those who 

 would rejoice to see our forests peopled with the love- 

 liest of wild creatures are legion. Yet the kill-lust of the 

 few rules in our legislatures. The traditions of bar- 

 barism die hard ! 



As for me, I much prefer to track the deer back from 

 the apple tree in our clearing, where he has been pawing 

 up the snow, into the woods, following his rambles to see 

 what else he ate that day not a difficult task when the 

 snow is fresh. It is obvious that he has nibbled at 



