DESTROYING DEER. 



87 



they sometimes run after having been shot 

 through a vital part is astonishing ; and 

 more of the deer kind mortally wounded, get 

 away, and are lost to the hunter, than any 

 other kind of game ; but the vulture soon 

 claims it, and marks the spot where it fell 

 by its circling flights. As above mentioned, 

 the neck is the best place to fire at a stag, 

 and the nearer the head the better. I once 

 fired at a stag behind the shoulders, when he 

 leapt up high in the air, and fell down, but 

 getting up again ran with great speed in a 

 large circle round me, but seeming as if 

 blind; at last be dropped dead, and on 

 opening him I found a large ball had passed 

 through his heart, quite destroying it, and 

 yet he must have gone a quarter of a mile in 

 that state ; but I never knew one get away 

 ten yards when well shot in the neck. 



Another way of destroying deer, for it 

 cannot be called sporting ^ but only retalia- 

 tion for depredations, is practised by Indians, 

 who may have cleared away a plot of forest 

 and sown it with maize. This piece of land 

 must be pretty well fenced, or otherwise the 

 wild boar, the dante (tapir), and deer, would 

 destroy a crop, especially when young and 

 tender, in one night. The fencing is gene- 



