14 THE STILL-HUNTER. 



durance in getting over ground enough, assisted by 

 brute perseverance, will bring success. 



But from all this we can draw only one conclusion; 

 namely, that the greater the success one has by care- 

 less or unscientific methods, the better it would be 

 and the more ease and pleasure he would have in it 

 by doing it scientifically. And to put the beginner 

 on the very best track, I have treated, throughout 

 this work, of deer very wild. This is rendered the 

 more necessary by the fact that in nearly all places 

 the deer of to-day is not the deer of thirty years ago ; 

 in many places not even the deer of ten years ago. 

 Deer become more wary as hunters increase. They 

 change their habits to suit new styles of hunting and 

 fire-arms. And these tendencies have been so trans- 

 mitted by descent that the average six-months-old 

 fawn of to-day is a far more delicate article to handle 

 than were most of the mighty old bucks on which 

 the Leatherstocking " old hunter" of thirty years ago 

 won his name and fame. 



It is quite common to hear still-hunting denounced 

 as "pot-hunting" by the advocates of driving deer 

 with hounds. That the market-hunter is almost al- 

 ways a still-hunter is unfortunately true. It is also 

 a sad truth that the man who murders woodcock in 

 May for Delmonico's epicures possesses a breech- 

 loader. But this hardly makes the use of the breech- 

 loader pot-hunting. I have seen it stated that a 

 still-hunter on snow was certain to secure the deer 

 that he once took the track of. All this savors of sour 

 grapes. No man who ever had any experience in 

 still-hunting ever committed such stuff to paper. But 

 to correct at the outset any misapprehension I will 

 say that, with whatever proficiency in still-hunting 



