218 WILD SPORTS IN THE TAR WEST. 



the eyes, or, if he can distinguish the outline of the fomi, 

 at the heart ; and he is generally sure of his game. 



There were numbers of salt-licks in the vicinity of 

 the Fourche le Fave, which were much visited by deer 

 and cattle. The former generally come in the night, 

 so that the sportsman may take up a station under a 

 scaffold, on the top of which a fire is made. Four 

 posts are driven into the ground, five feet apart, and 

 beams laid across, covered with a layer of leaves or 

 moss, then a layer of sand or earth, . on which the fire 

 is made. The sportsman sits underneath in impene- 

 trable darkness, yet able to see for seventy or eighty 

 paces on all sides, and easily kills any deer approaching 

 the lick. 



Many a night I lay in the mild Avarm air of the 

 forest. Sweet and refreshing as Avas the face of nature, 

 all was not repose ; mosquitoes and ticks almost drove 

 me to despair. Wlien the fire was once weU alight, 

 the mosquitoes were attracted by it, and destroyed 

 themselves by thousands, but the ticks became the 

 more furious. They swarm in the woods about the 

 end of April, and are a dreadful torment to the new- 

 comer. The full-grown ticks, about the size of a small 

 shot, are not the worst, because when they bite they 

 may be caught and killed ; but in July, the seed-ticks, 

 smaller than poppy seeds, cover the bushes by millions, 

 and I have often almost lost myself under them. 

 Tobacco smoke is the only safeguard against them, as 

 it kills them at once. The poor cattle are dreadfully 

 tormented by them, j^^rticularly -when they get into 

 their ears. The first cold drives them away, though a 

 few may be found aU through the winter. 



