KILLING DEER BY FIRE-LIGHT. 201 



and eaten his game. 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 illu- 

 minates 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 dis- 

 mounts, secures the skin and such portions of the flesh as he 

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

 search through the greater part of the night, sometimes to the 

 dawn of day, shooting from five to ten deer, should these animals 

 be plentiful. This kind of hunting proves fatal, not to the deer 

 alone, but also sometimes to wolves, and now and then to a horse 

 or a cow which may have strayed far into the woods. 



" Now, kind reader, prepare to mount a generous, full-blood 

 Virginia hunter, see that your gun is in complete order, for 

 hark to the sound of the bugle and horn, and the mingled 

 clamour of a pack of harriers. Your friends are waiting you 

 under the shade of the wood, and we must together go driving 

 the light-footed deer. The distance over which one has to 

 travel is seldom felt when pleasure is anticipated as the result, so 

 galloping we go pell-mell through the woods to some well-known 



