338 DEER HUNTING. 



parts of the country, forest-lig-7it, never fails to produce a very singular 

 feeling in him who witnesses it for the first time. There is something in 

 it which at times appears awfully grand. At other times, a certain de- 

 gree of fear creeps over the mind, and even affects the physical powers, of 

 him who follows the hunter through the thick undergrowth of our woods, 

 having to leap his horse over hundreds of huge fallen trunks, at one time 

 impeded by a straggling grape-vine crossing his path, at another squeezed 

 between two stubborn saplings, whilst their twigs come smack in his 

 face, as his companion has forced his way through them. Again, he 

 every now and then runs the risk of breaking his neck, by being sudden- 

 ly pitched headlong on the ground, as his horse sinks into a hole covered 

 over with moss. But I must proceed in a more regular manner, and 

 leave you, kind reader, to judge whether such a mode of hunting would 

 suit your taste or not. 



The hunter has returned to his camp or his house, has rested and 

 eaten of his game. He waits impatiently for the return of night. He 

 has procured a quantity of pine-knots filled with resinous matter, and has 

 an old frying-pan, that, for aught I know to the contrary, may have been 

 used by his great grandmother, in which the pine-knots are to be placed 

 when lighted. The horses stand saddled at the door. The hunter comes 

 forth, his rifle slung on his shoulder, and springs upon one of them, 

 while his son, or a servant, mounts the other, with the frying-pan and 

 the pine-knots. Thus accoutred, they proceed towards the interior of 

 the forest. When they have arrived at the spot where the hunt is to 

 begin, they strike fire with a flint and steel, and kindle the resinous 

 wood. The person who carries the fire moves in the direction judged to 

 be the best. The blaze illuminates the near objects, but the distant 

 parts seem involved in deepest obscurity. The hunter who bears the gun 

 keeps immediately in front, and after a while discovers before him two 

 feeble lights, which are produced by the reflection of the pine-fire from 

 the eyes of an animal of the deer or wolf kind. The animal stands 

 quite still. To one unacquainted with this strange mode of hunting, the 

 glare from its eyes might bring to his imagination some lost hobgoblin 

 that had strayed from its usual haunts. The hunter, however, nowise 

 intimidated, approaches the object, sometimes so near as to discern its 

 form, when raising the rifle to his shoulder, he fires and kills it on the 

 spot. He then dismounts, secures the skin and such portions of the flesh 

 as he may want, in the manner already described, and continues his 



