DEER HUNTING. 
241 
shoot the Deer as they come down to drink at dawn, and at 
nightfall. 
From Pennsylvania, and the western part of New-York, they 
are found everywhere to the westward abundantly, although 
such cruel and promiscuous havoc is made among them at all 
seasons, without respect for age or sex, that it cannot be dis¬ 
tinctly said how soon they may cease to exist. 
Up to the winter of 1836, they were found in thousands, in 
what are known as the Beech-woods , on the confines of New r - 
York and Pennsylvania; but in February of that year, hordes 
of savage rustic ruffians, profiting by the deep snows, and unex¬ 
ampled crust, went into the woods on snow-shoes, and literally 
slaughtered the helpless Deer, by droves, with clubs and knives, 
for the worth of their skins, the flesh at that season being use¬ 
less. Since that time they have never gathered to any large 
head. 
Such wanton brutality is inconceivable, and I cannot but 
believe that the bipeds capable of such butchery, would be 
equally capable of knocking a man in the head for his purse, 
could they do so undetected. 
The Legislature of New-York has done its duty in this mattei, 
but their efforts, I fear, are destined to effect no good, such is 
the strange impatience of legislation, and the abhorrence of game 
laws, quasi aristocratical, by our rural population, and such the 
greedy selfish gluttony of our rich cockney snobs, who will sup¬ 
port the illegal market, and uphold the criminal dealers and res 
taurants, who sell out of season. 
The hunting of Deer, everywhere north of the Potomac, is, 
in my opinion, vastly slow work, lacking alike the animation, 
the pomp, and spirit-stirring bustle of the chase proper, and the 
quickly-recurring excitement, and rapid occurrence of game, 
peculiar to the shooting field. 
It is practiced for the most part by two modes, driving and 
still-hunting, of which I consider the last, in general, by fat 
the most legitimate and exciting, as it demands both skill in 
woodcraft, and endurance, on the part of the hunter; whereas 
vol. ii. 16 
