30 THE STILL-HUNTER. 



tract of ground. One deer, especially an old buck in 

 the fall, will often track up two or three acres or 

 more so that one would think there had been a dozen 

 deer there; while the common expression "just like 

 sheep-tracks" with which some ignoramus is wont 

 to addle the beginner's head is often based on the 

 work of two or three deer over a few acres of ground. 



You must move on, then, over a considerable area 

 of ground. And in so doing it is still more important 

 to note the size and freshness of the tracks and drop- 

 pings. For the very same deer may have marked 

 several acres yesterday and several different acres 

 each day before, until nearly a hundred acres may be 

 so marked that to the careless eye it would look like 

 the work of fifty deer. 



As a rule, deer do not travel far if undisturbed. 

 And they generally travel less in timber than in open 

 ground. With the exception of a buck in the fall, 

 deer in timber seldom have a daily range of over half 

 a mile in diameter, and in open ground seldom over a 

 mile. In brush it is often much less. This is, how- 

 ever, on the assumption that food, water, and ground 

 for lying down are all near each other. For if these 

 are not near together a deer may travel very far. I 

 have known them to go three miles for acorns, a mile 

 or two from there to water, and a mile or two in an- 

 other direction to lie down. I have known them de- 

 scend five thousand feet at night for food and water, 

 returning at daybreak to the very tops of the highest 

 ridges in the timber-belt. Disturbance will also soon 

 drive them to this. But where undisturbed, and where 

 food, water, and good ground in which to lie down 

 (of which hereafter) are close together, a deer's daily 

 circuit is generally very limited. They will, however, 



