CARIACUS VIRGIN! ANUS. 
37 
vision, to quicken the hearing, and to impart to the whole system 
a glow of health and vigor. It calls into play the exercise of 
functions that are apt to be neglected by the student and man of 
business, and inspires the lover of nature with a zeal and enthusi- 
asm not easily extinguished. 
In addition to the three foregoing legitimate (!) methods of 
hunting the Deer, there are sometimes practised here two other 
ways of killing — I might better say butchering — that are too des- 
picable even to be spoken of without a feeling of shame. They 
are : by means of licks, and by crusting. 
A lick is a place where salt is put,* and the supply from time to 
time replenished. The Deer, being exceedingly fond of salt, after 
having once discovered the place, repair to it with great regu- 
larity. When they have visited the lick nightly for some little time, 
which is ascertained by examining the ground round about for 
tracks, the murderous pot-hunter, armed with a double-barrelled 
gun loaded with buck-shot, secretes himself at dusk behind some 
convenient covert, or in a neighboring tree, and in silence awaits 
the approach of his unsuspecting victim. 
Crusting is a method of destruction that is still more unfair and 
atrocious than that just described, and is only practised by the 
most worthless and depraved vagabonds. It depends, fortunately, 
upon a condition of the deep snows that is usually of short dura- 
tion, and rarely occurs save in the months of February and March. 
When the snow averages four or five feet in depth on the level, a 
thaw, followed by a freeze, converts the surface into a stiff crust 
which renders the Deer very helpless. Taking advantage of this 
state of things, the crust-hunters sally forth. Their snow-shoes 
enable them to skim lightly over the surface, whilst the poor Deer 
* The only natural deer-lick in the Adirondacks, so far as I am aware, is thus spoken of by Mr. 
Colvin : “ I observed in a moist place a deposit of marly clay, a rare thing in this region. What 
was most interesting, however, was the fact that this was a natural deer-lick, many places showing 
where the Deer had licked the clay, possibly obtaining a trifle of potash, alumina, and iron, derived 
from sulphates from decomposing pyrites.” (Report of the Adirondack Survey, 1880, p. 193.) 
