34 
MAMMALIA. 
fright and makes off at full speed before it has been seen at all. 
This the hunter at once detects by the difference in the track, 
the long spaces between footprints plainly showing that it was on 
the run. He now throws off all restraint and strikes into a brisk 
pace, for the Deer is already likely to be several miles away, and 
whatever noise is made cannot possibly reach its distant ears. 
When the tracks indicate that the Deer has slackened its gait into 
a walk, and has, perhaps, commenced to browse a little, then it is 
time to advance again slowly and with great circumspection, for 
having been once alarmed, it is even more on the alert than usual, 
and can only be approached with the utmost care. 
It not unfrequently happens that the Deer enters a swamp 
where several others are feeding, in which case the snow is apt to 
be so much cut up that it is impossible to follow the original 
track unless its size serves to distinguish it ; and even then it 
may cross and recross its own path so many times as to be- 
wilder the hunter, who must now do one of two things: either 
advance stealthily and noiselessly through the swamp, without re- 
gard to the footprints, hoping by chance to get a shot; or he must 
make a wide detour, circling around it, to see if the track he is 
after leads away in any direction. If it does not, he knows that 
the Deer is still in the swamp, and must return and attempt to 
find it. Appreciating the difficulty of the undertaking, he moves 
with great deliberation, his practised eye penetrating, at each step, 
every space and recess that the slight change of position brings in 
view. To the left he observes a prostrate maple, felled by the 
wind, and, knowing that Deer are fond of the kind of browse* it 
* Deer greedily devour the lichens that adhere to the branches of trees that have long been dead, 
and the buds and twigs of those that were living when they fell. This fact is well-knowrt to woods- 
men, who invariably assert that if a tree falls during the night, tracks of Deer can always be found 
there next morning. And I have heard more than one old hunter affirm it to be his sincere belief 
that Deer know the cause of the noise produced by a falling tree, and, guided by the sound, at once 
set out in quest of the spot. 
Mr. John Constable tells me that he once shot a Deer in the act of browsing upon the lichens 
that clung to a fallen tree-top. The animal was standing on its hind-legs, with its fore-feet resting 
upon a large limb, and was reaching up for the lichens. 
