“ THE AMERICAN DEER. 297 
worthless fish with spear and torch, till they have disap- 
peared from their most favorite rivers in the British 
Provinces, are all forms of this same wanton, wicked, I 
had well nigh said fiendish spirit, which is really a char- 
acteristic, as I have observed, of the white settler of 
every part of America. 
It is an absurdity to say that the spread of civilization 
and culture has destroyed the game, for it is a well- 
known fact that game of all sorts increases in the very 
same ratio in which cultivation increases, if left unmo- 
lested in their seasons of reproduction, nesting, spawn- 
ing, or tending their helpless young, so long as a suffi- 
ciency of woodland is left to afford them shelter. 
In Scotland, the Red Deer, which are strictly pre- 
served, so far as the prohibition to kill them out of 
season goes, but neither fed, tended, nor herded, are and 
have been for years rapidly on the increase; and it 
would probably be within the mark to say that there are 
at this instant fifty times as many Red Deer in the small 
space to the northward of the Highland line, thar in all 
the States between Maine and the Delaware. In the 
eastern and northern parts of Maine, they are still plen- 
tiful despite the sedulous efforts of the lumber-men to 
annihilate the race, and the occasional devastation of the 
wolves. In the northern parts of Vermont, Massachu- 
setts, and Connecticut, a few are still to be found, though 
they are but as individuals compared to the vast herds 
which were wont to roam those green glades and wild 
