2IO Deer of the Pacific Coast 



others care nothing for the presence of man, and 

 come so near that he can hear them eating. 

 Still, he cannot see them, for the grapevines are 

 much higher and the deer much lower than they 

 seem when seen apart. Even by moonlight, when 

 often most sure of success, the hunter is often 

 deceived the worst. Although I have seen many 

 a man try this watching, I never knew but one to 

 succeed. He did it by digging a pit in the 

 ground where it commanded a view of a knoll 

 against the sky. During the season he managed 

 in this way to get six deer, and in the operation 

 his vineyard of ten acres was mostly destroyed. 

 Many would imagine that the concentration of 

 deer at such a place would make the surrounding 

 hills fine for hunting ; but unless you are on the 

 hilltop, a mile or more away, by daylight your 

 chances will be slight, and you will discover that 

 there are several other directions they can take 

 as well as the one you have chosen for them. 

 Another way is to track them out, find where 

 they went, and go at evening to wait for them to 

 rise; but this is slow also, as the settler found, 

 for when thus feeding the deer seems perfectly 

 aware that he is doing mischief, and appears to 

 know that somebody seeks recompense. 



An apparent confirmation of this is the entirely 

 different action of the same deer when they quit 

 feeding on the cultivated place and resort to 



