582 
FOREST AND STREAM 
November, 1920 
A man from Townsend, Massachusetts, 
was hunting on West Hill with his wife. 
The ground was bare. They followed a 
woods road through Giles Swamp and on 
the edge of West Hill where there was 
a good view clear to the Townsend- 
Brookline road, they stopped and talked 
for quite a while. Right beside them was a 
thick patch of laurel, a hundred feet or 
so across. A big buck was lying in this 
patch. The hour was about 9 A. M., 
and the day was sunny. Finally, the 
buck, who no doubt had been peering at 
them through the brush all the time, 
lost his nerve and rose up and leaped 
for cover, and the man shot him. 
Another time, on the north end of 
West Hill near Aaron’s Spring, on a 
cloudy day, Will Copeland came up the 
woods road and stopped to listen for his 
dogs which were trailing a fox. After 
standing there for some time, he noticed 
tracks in the snow crossing a little way 
ahead and went forward to look at them. 
He saw they were deer tracks and 
straightened up and looked to see where 
they led, when two deer jumped up in 
a thick patch of laurel a few yards away 
and ran. This was about the middle of 
the forenoon. 
One morning I followed the tracks of 
two deer up the road that leads from 
O. D.’s orchard to the stone quarry. The 
tracks left the road and ran up into the 
laurel on the sunny side hill where the 
deer were lying down. They stuck until 
I left the road on their tracks when 
they departed suddenly. I didn’t see 
them but heard a slight noise. From 
these aforementioned circumstances and 
others I know of, I gather that a deer 
has considerable faith in thick laurel as 
cover, and also that he has some idea 
that a man sometimes follows a road. 
O NCE, I fol- 
lowed a deer 
track from 
the swamp in 
back of Betly’s 
up over the hill 
to the slope 
towards Brooks 
Rockwood’s pas- 
ture. It was a 
cool, sunny morn- 
ing and as the 
deer had fed in 
the swamp, I 
knew that he was 
looking for his 
siesta. The 
ground was most- 
ly bare and the 
tracking slow. 
When I came to 
the sunward 
slope, I advanced 
very cautiously, 
and looking far Very carefully I 
ahead, made out 
a patch of thick brush that had all 
the ear marks of a head board for a 
deer’s bed. There were a number of 
hemlocks on the slope, but on all the 
limbs were well up from the ground. Un- 
der the hemlocks there was still some 
hard snow which had softened from the 
sun and showed traces plainly. Very 
carefully I swung a big circle about the 
brush patch at a safe distance, looking 
around to make my circle always on the 
best tracking ground, and finally de- 
cided that my deer had gone in and had 
not come out of that brush patch, and 
that he must still be there. It looked 
like a dubious proposition to try and get 
him alone, so I cut for Aunt Belle’s and 
doughnuts and assistance. Doughnuts 
there were in profusion, but no assist- 
ance, so I came back alone in the after- 
noon, circled again and found the deer 
still “in”, and planned as best I could. 
Keeping pretty well to leeward and al- 
ways with something between me and 
him, I crept right to the edge of the 
brush patch, and then I was too near 
for I couldn’t see anything. If I got 
far enough to see over the brush, I was 
out of gunshot, so I started to creep in. 
Interlocking shrubs barred my way, and 
as I separated them, pushing one with 
my gun, and holding another to one side 
with my hand, and stepping high over 
still another, the deer jumped and I saw 
his white tail wave twice above the brush 
and then he was gone straight away and 
I could not even glimpse him through 
the brush. This brush patch was only 
about 75 feet across. 
In bright, sunny weather, the deer 
lies in the sunlight until it is gone from 
the place in which he happens to be, then 
he gets up, stretches himself, and be- 
gins to think about supper. He does not 
travel far and avoids the open until it 
becomes quite dusky. If he is in a swamp, 
he will feed around in the brush, but if 
up on a high hill, he will just stand 
around under the trees waiting for the 
light to die. In New Hampshire in De- 
cember, he arises about 3 P. M., and if 
the cover along the w^ay is good, and 
shady, may be at a feeding place a mile 
or so away by 4:30 in the afternoon. 
T HE extent of a deer’s normal range, 
that is, the territory he usually 
covers and in which he makes his 
home when undisturbed, varies with the 
age of the deer. The two little deer I 
shot in the vicinity of Little Potanipus 
Hill lived right there all the time, their 
range extending from the swamps and 
meadows between Betly’s and the Pierce 
Place, to Brooks Rockwood’s pasture 
and Averill’s meadows. Their mother 
stayed there with them for the most part, 
but if disturbed would leave immediate- 
ly and be gone for a day or two. The 
little fellows if chased out, swung a little 
curve up on to Big Potanipus Hill (back 
of Cleveland Place) and then right back 
again, and if left on Big Potanipus at 
night, would be back on old ground by 
morning. This area which you might 
call their home was, roughly, about two 
miles on a side, and if you call their 
range five square miles, you wouldn’t 
miss it much. That is, of course, ideal 
home country for a deer and embraces 
everything required — the cut-offs and 
swamps, the aj pie trees, hills and water. 
O NE year, there were in that ter- 
ritory, besides the little deer, five 
others of larger size, two of them 
being yearlings. These five ranged to- 
gether and their range covered that 
of the small deer and besides extended 
to the Frost Place, Coal Kiln Brook 
basin, including Brook’s Pond, across 
the head of Perley’s Pond, up the 
State line to Perley’s pasture, and down 
into Dave Rockwood’s pasture, though 
they stayed for the greater part of the 
time in the small deer’s range and the 
Frost Place and Brook’s Pond, but when 
disturbed, Dave Rockwood’s pasture 
suited them as well. 
Another year, a drove, including a 
small one or two, ranged from the Pierce 
Place across Brook’s Pond basin and 
through by Duck and Green Ponds to 
Stickney’s pasture and Beckonert’s 
meadows on the Townsend Brookline 
road, the larger ones crossing West Hill 
to Uncle Steve’s 
place and rang- 
ing the Coal Kiln 
Brook, with an 
occasional trip to 
Willis Ball’s or- 
chard. The whole 
territory ranged 
by these larger 
deer was about 
twenty - five 
square miles, and 
I think this may 
be taken as the 
average range of 
the average deer, 
provided, of 
course, that area 
embraces all his 
requirements. 
The stag, that 
is the old boy 
with a footprint 
like a yearling 
heifer’s, and 
horns like a brush 
heap, wrinkles on 
his neck you could lay your finger in- 
to, a wild red look in his eyes and no 
love in his heart, is an outlaw like a 
rogue elephant, and a wanderer on the 
face of the earth. His range is the wide, 
wide world, and wherever he may be, he 
wishes to be somewhere else. No deer 
dope you may figure applies to him; he 
is a law unto himself. The Rockwood- 
swung a big circle about the brush patch at a safe distance 
