DEER SHOOTING. 89 



be accounted barbarous ; but a person who 

 thinks so should imagine himself in the In- 

 dian's position, who has hewn down the trees, 

 burnt the underwood, made his fence, and 

 planted his maize ; and perhaps finds all 

 destroyed in a single night that he had 

 provided as part subsistence for his family 

 during the year. He would kill them or 

 trap them, as many a farmer would wish to 

 kill or trap (and often does) the hares and 

 rabbits that nip up his young wheat near 

 large coverts in England. The great cruelty 

 of the case, however, is when no watch is 

 kept, and in this case, which is the most 

 frequent one, the poor deer remains probably 

 suffering great agony for a long time ; and 

 often the cuyotes, or wild dogs and wolves, 

 tear them piecemeal from the stake, but it is 

 scarcely more cruel than leaving a rabbit in 

 a trap all night with its legs broken and 

 mangled. 



The best time for shooting deer is during 

 a long-continued fall of rain, with boisterous 

 weather ; not a mere shower, however heavy 

 it may be, for that is the worst time, but 

 during what the inhabitants call a " tem- 

 poral," which means in Spanish a storm or 

 tempest, but which they apply to a set-in 



