DEER HUNTING. 
243 
ther. There is certainly no sublimity about them, unless it be 
the sublimity of the ridiculous; and I believe that now-a-days 
few persons worthy of the name of sportsmen honor these tra¬ 
vestied battues with their presence. High living by day, high 
play at night, soft pillows in the morning, with just enough 
sporting to serve as an excuse, are the great inducements to 
New-York gunners to visit “ the Island,” unless it be for Fowl 
shooting, which is really fine, and a sport worthy of a sportsman, 
or for the kindred amusement of Trout fishing with the fly, in 
waters which it is no easy matter to surpass anywhere, either 
for the excellence of their stocking, or the quality of their fish. 
For the rest, I can conceive nothing more lugubriously dull 
than a Long Island Deer-hunt. It is just the thing for a Broad¬ 
way dandy, and for nothing on the broad earth beside. 
In Hamilton county, among the fine bright lakes, the pellucid 
rivers, and the great breezy hills, although the order of the day 
is still driving, it is a very different affair, leaving much, almost 
everything indeed, after the Deer is started, to the energies, the 
tact, and the activity of the hunter. 
He is stationed, indeed, at the first, by a run-way, where it 
opens on the lake, or river—that which the guide deems the 
best; but when the deep bay of the Staghound, bellowing 
through the passes of the mighty mountains, and repeated fifty 
fold by the sportive echoes, gives note that the game is a-foot, 
the hunter must shift his place, as the music sweeps onward 
over rock and through ravine, now bounding, rifle in hand, over 
stock and stone, with gait swift at once, and stealthy,—now 
making his light skiff, or yet lighter bark canoe, glance over the 
clear waters, with strong-pulled sculls, or deftly-managed pad¬ 
dles, and owing it to his own speed and skill in avoiding the 
sight or the scent of the hunted quarry, if he gets it within rifle 
range. 
Again, if it take the water boldly, as it will often do, and swim 
across from shore to shore, there is a race in view , with all de¬ 
pendent on the individual faculties and personal prowess of the 
sportsman, producing all that consciousness of power, that emu- 
