TO FIND GOOD HUNTING-GROUND. 19 



prairie. Often they will be most plenty in the dense 

 undergrowth of river bottoms, and again in the high 

 bluffy lands along them; sometimes in the heaviest 

 swamps and places abounding in lakes or ponds ; some- 

 times in the valleys and low ravines, and again mainly 

 on the ridges and points. By all this I mean that the 

 greater part of the deer will be in such places, and 

 not that they are exclusively on such ground; for in a 

 country abounding in deer generally more or less will 

 be found on nearly all kinds of ground and at every 

 season, except perhaps on the mountain-tops in case 

 of deep snows in winter. The habits of deer in regard 

 to shifting will often vary very much in the same sec- 

 tion of country. In some parts of Southern California 

 fully three fourths of the deer on a certain range will 

 leave it for another range. In other parts the same 

 deer will always be found on the same old circle where 

 you have found them for years, and if killed out there 

 will be few or none to be found there for a year or two. 

 While antelope generally have a far more extensive 

 daily or weekly range than deer, they are less apt to 

 shift from section to section for any cause but snow. 

 Some of the bands yet remaining in San Diego County, 

 Cal., stay on their old range through the severest 

 drouths, clinging to their native plain long after 

 horses and cattle have been starved out upon it, re- 

 fusing to leave it though there be good feed in other 

 sections not far away. But it must not be inferred 

 that the antelope in all sections retains this love for 

 his native heath. Such may be the case, but a few 

 instances do not prove it. And all through the study 

 of still-hunting you cannot be too careful how you 

 draw conclusions from a few instances, and especially 

 about the migratory movements of deer. 



