232 
VIRGINIAN DEER. 
It may not be uninteresting to our readers if we point out the different 
modes in which Deer hunts are conducted. 
In the early settlement of our country, when men hunted for food, and be- 
fore they accustomed themselves to study their ease and comfort even in the 
chase, “ still hunting,” as it is termed, was universally practised. The 
wolves and other depredating animals, by which the colonists were sur- 
rounded, as well as the proximity of hostile Indians, almost precluded 
them for many years from raising a sufficient supply of sheep, hogs, and 
poultry. The cultivation of a small field furnished them with bread, 
while for meat they were chiefly dependent on the gun. Hence a portion 
of their time was from a kind of necessity devoted to the chase. The 
passion for hunting seems however to be innate with many persons, and 
we have observed that it often runs in families and is transmitted to their 
posterit}^, as is known to be the ease with the descendants of the hunters m 
the Alps. There are even now many persons in our country, who devote 
weeks and months to the precarious employment of Deer hunting, when 
half the industry and fatigue in regular labour would afford their families 
every necessary and comfort. Hunting is a pleasant recreation, but a 
very unprofitable trade ; it often leads to idleness, intemperance, and 
poverty. 
For success in still-hunting it is essential that the individual who en- 
gages in it, should be acquainted with the almost impenetrable depths ofthe 
forest, as well as the habits of the Deer. He must be expert in the use of 
the rifle, possess a large stock of patience, and be constitutionally adapted 
to endure great fatigue. Before the dawn of day, he treads the paths 
along which the animal strays in returning from its nightly rambles to the 
covert usually its resting-place for the day. He ascends an elevation, to 
ascertain whether he may not observe the object of his search feeding in 
the vallies. If the patience and perseverance of the morning are not at- 
tended with success, he seeks for the Deer in its bed — if it should be start- 
led by his stealthy tread and spring up, it stops for a moment before bound- 
ing away, and thus affords him the chance of a shot ; even if the animal 
should keep on its course without a pause, he frequently takes a running, 
or what is called a chance shot, and is often successful. 
There is another mode of deer hunting we saw practised many years 
ago in the Western parts of the State of New-York, which we regard as 
still more fatiguing to the hunter, and as an unfair advantage taken of the 
unfortunate animals. The parties sally out on a deep snow, covered by a 
crust, which sometimes succeeds a rain during winter. They use light 
snow-shoes and seek the Deer in situations where in the manner of the 
moose of Nova Scotia, they have trampled paths through the snow m 
