248 NORTHERN ZOOLOGY. 
they set a snare, made with thongs of parchment deer-skins well twisted together, 
which are amazingly strong. One end of the snare is usually made fast to a 
growing pole; but if no one of a sufficient size can be found near the place where 
the snare is set, a loose pole is substituted in its room, which is always of such 
size and length that a deer cannot drag it far before it gets entangled among the 
other woods, which are all left standing, except what is found necessary for 
making the fence, hedges, &c. The pound being thus prepared, a row of small 
brush-wood is stuck up in the snow on each side of the door or entrance, and these 
hedge rows are continued along the open part of the lake, river, or plain, where 
neither stick nor stump besides is to be seen, which makes them the more dis- 
tinctly observed. These poles or brush-wood are generally placed at the distance 
of fifteen or twenty yards from each other, and ranged in such a manner as to form 
two sides of a long acute angle, growing gradually wider in proportion to the 
distance they extend from the pound, which sometimes is not less than two or 
three miles, while the deer’s path is exactly along the middle, between the two 
rows of brush-wood. 
‘‘ Indians employed on this service always pitch their tents on or near to an 
eminence that affords a commanding prospect of the path leading to the pound; 
and when they see any deer going that way, men, women, and children walk along 
the lake or river side under cover of the woods, till they get behind them, then 
step forth to open view, and proceed towards the pound in form of a crescent. 
The poor timorous deer finding themselves pursued, and at the same time taking 
the two rows of brushy poles to be two ranks of people stationed to prevent their 
passing on either side, run straight forward in the path till they get into the pound. 
The Indians then close in, and block up the entrance with some brushy trees that 
have been cut down and lie at hand for that purpose. The deer being thus 
enclosed, the women and children walk round the pound to prevent them from 
jumping over or breaking through the fence, while the men are employed spearing 
such as are entangled in the snares, and shooting with bows and arrows those which 
remain loose in the pound. This method of hunting, if it deserve the name, is 
sometimes so successful, that many families subsist by it without having occasion 
to move their tents above once or twice during the course of a whole winter ; and 
when the spring advances, both the deer and Indians draw out to the eastward, 
on the ground which is entirely barren, or at least what is called so in these parts, 
as it neither produces trees nor shrubs of any kind, so that moss and some little 
grass is all the herbage which is to be found on it.” 
Captain Franklin observes that “the rein-deer has a quick eye, but the hunter 
