DEER HUNTING. 337 



during the middle of the day. The place is covered with blood, the 

 hoofs of the deer have left deep prints in the ground, as it bounced in 

 the agonies produced by its wound ; but the blood that has gushed from 

 its side discloses the course which it has taken. We soon reach the spot. 

 There lies the buck, its tongue out, its eye dim, its breath exhausted : 

 it is dead. The hunter draws his knife, cuts the buck's throat almost 

 asunder, and prepares to skin it. For this purpose he hangs it upon the 

 branch of a ti'ee. When the skin is removed, he cuts off the hams, 

 and abandoning the rest of the carcass to the wolves and vultures, re- 

 loads his gun, flings the venison, enclosed by the skin, upon his back, 

 secures it with a strap, and walks off' in search of more game, well 

 knowing that, in the immediate neighbourhood, another at least is to be 

 found. 



Had the weather been warmer, the hunter would have sought for the 

 buck along the shadowy side of the hills. Had it been the spring sea^ 

 son, he would have led us through some thick cane-brake, to the margin 

 of some remote lake, where you would have seen the deer, immersed to 

 his head in the water, to save his body from the tormenting attacks of 

 moschettoes. Had winter overspread the earth with a covering of snow, 

 he would have searched the low damp woods, where the mosses and 

 lichens, on Avhich at that period the deer feeds, abound, the trees being 

 generally crusted with them for several feet from the ground. At one 

 time, he might have marked the places where the deer clears the velvet 

 from his horns by rubbing them against the low stems of bushes, and 

 where he frequently scrapes the earth with his fore-hoofs ; at another, he 

 would have betaken himself to places where persimons and crab-apples 

 abound, as beneath these trees the deer frequently stops to munch their 

 fruits. During early spring, our hunter would imitate the bleating of 

 the doe, and thus frequently obtain both her and the fawn ; or, like some 

 tribes of Indians, he would prepare a deer's head, placed on a stick, and 

 creeping with it amongst the tall grass of the prairies, would decoy the 

 deer within reach of his rifle. But kind reader, you have seen enough 

 of the still hunter. Let it suffice for me to add, that by the mode pursued 

 by him, thousands of deer are annually killed, many individuals shooting 

 these animals merely for the skin, not caring for even the most valuable 

 portions of the flesh, vmless hunger, or a neai* market, induce them to 

 carry off" the hams. 



The mode of destroying deer \y^ fire-light, or, as it is named in somo 



y 



