108 GREEN TRAILS AND UPLAND PASTURES 



young hemlocks, apparently pulling off the tips as he 

 passed along, much as a horse will do when you are 

 driving him idly down a country lane. But the ground- 

 hemlock, or American yew, is not thus lightly passed 

 over. When the deer find a clump of this evergreen 

 rising above the snow, they fall upon it eagerly, and 

 sometimes eat it down almost to ground level. It is a 

 staple of their diet. Another staple seems to be sumac. 

 More than once I have come upon a deer along some 

 back road, feeding close to the boundary wall, and in- 

 vestigation has disclosed that he was eating sumac fruit. 

 In whiter, when you pick up a deer track in the woods 

 and have time and patience to follow, it will frequently 

 lead you to some sumac hedge by a pasture wall or back 

 road. Before it gets there, to be sure, it may take you 

 into the deep forest for ground-hemlock, and over a 

 frozen swamp to a spot where there are water-holes pro- 

 tected from frost between the peaty hummocks, or even 

 over a mountain almost too steep and slippery for your 

 feet. But ultimately in our New England country the 

 deer will probably swing back toward a sumac patch, 

 even if it brings him close to a village, and leave the 

 signs of his feeding on the broken stems. To start a doe 

 with her fawns by a sumac hedge, to see her clear a stone 

 wall at a single leap with no running start, to see the 

 fawns with white tails like rabbits go cavorting after her 

 with all the grace of animated saw-horses, is one of the 

 prettiest sights in nature. 



