November, 1920 
FOREST AND STREAM 
583 
Western deer live in a more open country than the Eastern whitetail. Snow causes 
them likewise to feed away from cover. 
Elliot Triumvirate followed one’s track 
all the way from Hollis around by North 
Brookline to Mason before starting him, 
and we followed him from there nigh 
into Wilton the next day without start- 
ing him. All respectable deer were yard- 
ed at the time. He went through a yard 
in Mason, and when he went in, the 
others went out in all directions. The 
men who followed him before, into Hollis 
from the east, followed him through an- 
other yard where likewise the other 
deer scattered. I’d like to shoot one of 
those big fellows; Rufe Wells got one, 
and it weighed four or five hundred; but 
the fellow with limited time at his dis- 
posal had best stick to deer if he wants 
venison, and leave the stags alone. 
Most hunters have the notion that the 
deer depends mostly upon his fine sense 
of smell to warn him of approaching dan- 
ger, but that is not so; he depends as 
much upon his sense of hearing and of 
sight, and they are every bit as fine as 
his sense of smell, and don't ever forget 
that he knows how and when to use each 
of them. When under way and going 
full tilt, he will go into the wind if he 
can, and when so going will smash 
through the thickest kind of brush for 
cover, trusting to his nose alone. If not 
practicable to go into the wind, he will 
keep it on one flank and a good view on 
the other; I have seen no exception to 
this. When moving more slowly, even at 
a lope, he makes almost no noise himself, 
but frequently stops to listen if pursued. 
T HE food of the deer is not a very 
choice assortment. During the 
hunting season, if obtainable, the 
low blackberry that grows in the shade 
under the pines and over the old brush 
piles, under the shadow of the sprouts on 
cut-off lands and in the swamps, seems to 
be the prime favorite dish. I have fol- 
lowed deer trails many times leading 
from patch to patch of this, and found 
the vines pulled and disarranged from 
his feeding. When there is but little 
snow, the deer will still feed on this, dig- 
ging down into the snow for it. Once 
he- gets a hold of a vine, he can pull 
quite a bit of it out at one time. When 
snow is deep, I have known deer when 
being chased and quite scared, in chanc- 
ing across a bare spot on a sheltered, 
sunny hillside where the blackberry 
under small pines had not been very 
heavily covered by snow and that had 
been thawed off, to grab a vine or two 
in passing, and have never known one to 
bother to eat anything else, except an 
apple, when in flight. The paunch of 
each deer I have examined, and they 
were all shot while the blackberry vine 
was available, has contained that vine, or 
rather, the leaf from that vine. This 
blackberry should not be confused with 
the sandy hillside variety that grows the 
large luscious berry sometimes called the 
“dew berry”; the vine the deer likes has 
almost no berry at all, and that which it 
has seldom matures, and the vine is fur- 
ther marked by the embryonic develop- 
ment of its thorns, and the fact that 
the thorns stay on and do not dry up all 
winter in the localities I have visited. 
As a delicacy, a sweet apple possesses 
an almost irresistible attraction for a 
deer, and he will travel long distances 
and risk his hide again and again just 
to get a few mouthfuls of sweet apples. 
Ir. all his feedings, he is a conserver and 
never if it can be avoided, cleans up all 
the available supply in any one locality. 
So with the apples; if there are several 
trees, he will visit a number of them, eat 
ari apple or two under each, and shove 
off. If there is only one tree, he eats 
only a few’ apples that may be lying 
about on the ground. He doesn’t seem to 
care for many, but what few he wants, 
he wants mighty badly, and he will paw 7 
down through a foot or tw T o of snow to 
get them. 
When his favorite blackberry is not 
available, his principal food consists of 
buds from the tips of shoots, including 
the ash, maple, birch, oak and sometimes 
sumach. These he finds in greatest num- 
bers, and in most tender and succulent 
condition, in cut-offs and swamps, so his 
feeding range remains in about the same 
territory whatever conditions, varying 
only to include the apple trees, w 7 hen the 
apple dessert is in season. 
In sections where it abounds, as in 
Mason, a certain special of ground hem- 
lock or dwarf cedar finds much favor 
with his deership when snow is deep, and 
his feeding range then takes in most of 
them in the vicinity and he gets a 
mouthful from each, even digging 
down for those buried in the snow. 
These have a rather strong odor, even to 
a mortal, and I have seen where a deer 
turned at right angles, went straight to 
a buried bush of this kind, about twenty 
yards away, dug down and ate a mouth- 
ful or two. and then went back and con- 
tinued on his original route. This dwarf 
cedar or ground hemlock looks more like 
a cedar than it does a hemlock, and 
grows to about the height of a man; the 
size preferred by the deer is about two 
or three feet high. This must not be 
confused with the juniper which fans 
out all over the ground and bears the 
purple berries. I have seen deer tracks 
lead to and from juniper, but could never 
detect where one ate any of it; it may 
be that one eats a berry or so for the 
kidneys as a w r ench eats the extract 
thereof called “gin.” 
When snow is very deep, the dwarf 
oak whose leaves do not drop, but wither 
and remain on the tree, furnish food 
which the deer does not disdain. There 
is a little patch of them on Little Po- 
tanipus Hill, where the deer yarded once 
upon a time, and another on Perley’s 
Flats, between his board yard and Duck 
Pond, and is fed on extensively when 
snow is deep. I am of the opinion that 
the deer turns to this leaf when other 
food is heavily encrusted in sleet and 
ice, but am not sure of that. 
I N order to shoot a deer, the first thing, 
of course, is to find him. This is 
purely a track proposition. That is, 
he makes tracks and you make tracks, 
and you make your tracks lead to where 
his tracks are, and the success of the 
game — from your point of view — de- 
pends upon the proper synchronising of 
the track-making so that you are making 
tracks about where he is making tracks 
at about the time he is making them. 
See? The rules are easy, but the inside 
stuff is harder. This is the way it works 
out. In the wee sma’ hours before the 
peep of day, you spring lightly from 
your warm and comfortable bed, dress 
hastily to the tune of chattering teeth, 
souse your head into ice water, gobble 
your breakfast, grab your gun and your 
lunch and beat it for the vicinity of deer- 
feeding grounds. These you flank look- 
ing for tracks. The very best way to tell 
a fresh track is to go over the ground 
