EXAMINING THE GROUND, SIGNS, ETC. 35 



and five to the square mile would be plenty enough 

 for the best of sport on light snow. 



The word "plenty" varies, again, with the persons 

 using it. A man finds his turnip-patch well tracked 

 up and talks of " plenty of deer," " lots of deer," "just 

 like a sheep-yard," etc., when in fact it is all done by 

 two or three deer that are by daylight a mile or more 

 away safely ensconced in some windfall or brush- 

 patch, without another deer within two or three 

 miles. " The deer are so plenty they are destroying 

 the vineyards" is a species of twaddle very common 

 in the papers of Southern California. He who lies 

 out a few moonlight nights to watch one of those 

 selfsame vineyards, or, failing in that, attempts to 

 follow the tracks of the ravagers back to their moun- 

 tain-home in the morning, if he is fortunate enough 

 to get even a sight of the old doe and two fawns, ac- 

 companied perhaps by a buck or a yearling or two, 

 that did the whole mischief, returns hot, breathless, 

 and disgusted from a long scramble among the rocks 

 and brush, and goes home with a vastly different 

 notion of " lots of deer" from what he had when he 

 came out. 



One of the first and most ineradicable ideas the 

 beginner gets is that there are about ten or twenty 

 times as many deer about him as there really are. 

 The consequence is a speedy feeling of disappoint- 

 ment. If in the course of a day's walk you start 

 six or eight deer that is, either see them or find 

 where they have run away from you and can find 

 tracks or droppings not over a day or two old at every 

 fifty or one hundred yards of most of your course over 

 the kinds of ground above described, you may con- 

 sider deer quite plenty enough for the best of sport. 



