190 BIG GAME OF NORTH AMEKICA. 



the observation of game-wardens, all the dogs that will fol- 

 low a trail are brought into requisition, and the Deer are 

 driven into the water, where, perfectly helx)less, a club, ax, 

 or a rille completes the work of butchery. In the winter, 

 " crusting" is followed by these mountaineers, and when the 

 weather is too warm for venison to keep, it is jerked, and 

 then sent to market. The "Jack-o'-lantern" method, in 

 favor among some hunters, is scarcely more commendable. 

 The Deer is given no chance of escape, but is frequently 

 only wounded, and left to crawl off into the bushes and die. 

 Give a Deer a chance, and he will run or fight as the emer- 

 gency requires. When he does fight, he is no mean enemy. 



The Virginia Deer was the first game hunted on this 

 continent by tlie whites, and though, like the Buffalo, he 

 has been driven from many of his native haunts, he is not 

 in like danger of becoming extinct. Adequate and well- 

 enforced laws will preserve him in the East, and there is 

 little danger of his being run out of either the Lake Supe- 

 rior or Lake Michigan region, or from the lower Mississippi 

 States. His pursuit calls into play all the mental and 

 physical energies of the sportsman, and there is nothing 

 nobler in the chase than either of the legitimate methods 

 of hunting this beautiful animal. 



Sportsmen in different sections of the country have their 

 own peculiar methods of hunting the Deer. A rifle is ridi- 

 culed by the men who hunt in the cane-brakes of Louisiana, 

 and a shotgun is an abomination in the Adirondacks or in 

 the Rocky Mountains. As a rule, along the Atlantic Coast 

 and in the South, hounds are employed in hunting Deer. In 

 the West they are regarded as useless. It makes no differ- 

 ence, however, where the tyro goes for his sport, he must 

 get over the "buck-fever" before he can become a success- 

 ful sj)ortsman, or really enjoy the chase. The mere killing 

 of game does not entitle a man to the freedom and priv- 

 ileges of the craft. 



Several years ago, the writer was introduced to a miner 

 in El Dorado County, California, who, from the amount of 

 venison he brought into market, was esteemed a veritable 



