HUNTING ON SNOW. 123 



making a background upon which you may the more 

 easily discover your game; in enabling you to speedily 

 ascertain the quantity and quality of the deer about 

 you, the direction they have .taken, what they were 

 doing, and how long since they passed, etc. etc. To 

 follow up tracks is often folly. An old buck in ' run- 

 ning-time" will often lead you too longa race. A doe 

 may then do the same. If tracks consist of jumps or 

 half-jumps, or half-trot or half-walk and half-jump, it 

 generally shows that the deer are alarmed, especially 

 if there are places where they have stopped and 

 turned around or sideways to look back. It will then 

 be quite useless to follow them except as hereafter 

 directed. If the deer are much hunted by still- 

 hunters, they will be so likely to watch their back 

 track even when lying down that it will be quite vain 

 to keep on the track. Where the ground is very 

 brushy or very level it is rarely advisable to follow a 

 trail unless the deer are very tame or you can use a 

 cow-bell or horse. And where deer are plenty and 

 you are well acquainted with the ground, knowing all 

 the ridges, passes, feeding-places, and lying-down 

 ground, it is often better to let tracks entirely alone 

 and hunt as you have done heretofore to find them on 

 foot at feeding-time, or standing in or around thickets 

 during the day, or lying down. This is the course 

 pursued by many of the best hunters quite as often 

 as tracking. They use the tracks only as a general 

 guide, and depend mainly upon the other advantages 

 of the snow above mentioned. 



But whether you follow tracks or not, there are 

 some points ever to be remembered: 



i st. That while snow enables you to see a deer 

 much farther as well as more quickly and distinctly 



