i4 
FOREST AND STREAM. 
[July 4, 1908. 
Hunting in the Danish West Indies. 
III.—A Deer Hunt, and what Befell Therein. 
The hunt I am about to describe was or¬ 
ganized on behalf of an English visitor to the 
island, who expressed himself anxious to enjoy 
this phase of our sport. The meet took place 
at the residence of a friend of mine whom we 
will call F. As I rode up to the house I saw 
congregated on the open space before the door 
a motley collection of horses, dogs and darkeys, 
the latter already in that frantic state of gesticu- 
latory excitement without which the West In¬ 
dian negro can say or do nothing. Interrupting 
their vehement altercation on the respective 
merits of “Mar’s Bob’s mare’’ and “Mar’s Pat’s 
horse,” and the hunting powers of “Mar’s Tom’s 
dargs,” I delivered my mare to one of them 
and entered the house. I was greeted by about 
a dozen men, all planters, with the single ex- 
FAWN IN 
From a copyrighted photograph by 
ception of the Englishman, a typical set of men, 
comprising as they did four Irishmen, four 
Danes and three native planters, all jolly good 
fellows, with that heartiness of voice and man¬ 
ner peculiar to men in our line of life. 
We took our departure for a large canefield 
in which one of the darkeys had reported the 
presence of deer. This field was quite twenty 
acres in extent and bounded on three sides by 
similar canefields, but on the southern by a large 
stretch of pasture land ending in a hill covered 
with bush. The knowing ones judged that the 
game would probably make for the distant hills, 
such being their habit when hard pressed, and 
so posted ourselves along with the Englishman 
on that side at intervals. The darkeys and the 
dogs were turned into the tall canes, while we 
sat our horses, waiting expectantly. Inside we 
could hear the yells of the negroes encouraging 
the dogs, while my mare, an old hunter, stood 
with twitching ears and head turning quickly 
from side to side. 
Suddenly from away in the cane came the 
shrill yap of a small dog followed by a chorus 
of barking, and round the eastern corner of the 
field bounded a fine buck which had broken 
cover and was off across the pasture land for 
the distant hills. Friend F., who was nearest 
him, banged away, but did not stop him, and 
the next instant, with a shout to my mare and 
a touch of the spur, I was after him, followed 
by the whole cavalcade, while on his track raced 
the big brown dog, the balance of the pack 
stringing out after him according to their vari¬ 
ous degrees of speed. Behind us came the dar¬ 
keys on foot, with a fleetness and endurance 
only to be found in their hardy and sinewy 
frames, mad with excitement and the near pros¬ 
pect of venison, each of them yelling as if pos¬ 
sessed. Anton, who was mounted on a power¬ 
ful bay horse, and whose heavy weight was no 
impediment to his bold riding, came up along¬ 
side of me, flanked by the Englishman, who, 
whatever his little affectations of speech and 
manner, was evidently a splendid horseman. 
Further off, on a line with us, galloped one of 
HIDING. 
the New York Zoological Society. 
the Danes and friend F., followed a few yards 
behind by the others. What a glorious gallop 
that was. 
After about fifteen minutes the buck, for some 
unknown reason, wheeled suddenly to the left 
and instantly the Dane on that side tried to cut 
him off at an angle. It was then we saw that 
the shot from F. had taken effect, for the buck 
slackened his speed somewhat, which allowed 
the Dane to get within range, and we saw him 
drop his reins, lift his gun, and over rolled the 
buck. Then as all hands galloped up we dis¬ 
mounted to blow our horses, mop the perspira¬ 
tion from our faces, and examine the quarry. 
^ hen the dogs arrived, followed by the negroes, 
another pandemonium broke forth, as the fel¬ 
lows yelled and danced round the deer in every 
position of grotesque triumph. A cart from the 
plantation being shortly on hand, the deer was 
deposited therein and taken to the yard, while 
the party rode back to try another field. 
Having stationed ourselves round this, I again 
taking the southern side next to the English¬ 
man and “Mar’s Tom,” the dogs and men went 
in, and after a while one of them gave tongue. 
We at once recognized the deep bay of “Mar’s 
Tom’s” dog, and immediately afterward a deer 
bounded out on to the road, dropping instantly 
to a shot from the Irishman. But here ensued 
a catastrophe. As the deer leaped out the brown 
dog followed directly behind him, and the ex¬ 
cited Englishman, mistaking the animal for an¬ 
other deer, dropped the dog dead with a shot. 
As the other horsemen rode up there was uni¬ 
versal wailing, for the dog was the best in the 
country and generally loved. The Englishman 
was deeply chagrined, and expressed his regrets 
profusely, all of which were waved aside by the 
Irishman who was too much of a gentleman to 
allow his guest thus to trouble himself. 
The sun now asserting its power unpleasantly, 
we rode back to the plantation, where the two 
deer were skinned, a leg kept by the manager, 
and the rest distributed among the darkeys. 
Then after a rest came the breakfast where full 
justice was done the pig and other delicacies, 
and afterward, with coffee and cigars on the 
cool verandah, reminiscences of former hunts 
were indulged in and much light chat and 
badinage exchanged, until the gathering shades 
of evening sent each man toward home. 
The deer above mentiond is the red deer of 
the North, an addition made to the rather limited 
fauna by an English governor, at the time of 
the occupation of the island by that nation, of 
specimens imported from Virginia, which have 
since increased so greatly in numbers as to be 
very plentiful. They are, of course, not found 
in the neighboring islands of St. Thomas and 
St. John of the same group, situated about forty 
miles to the north of Ste. Croix. There is no 
doubt that at the time of the discovery of this 
island by Columbus, the “Grand Admiral” on 
his second voyage in 1493, the fauna included 
a far greater variety than at present, but the 
simultaneous and sudden destruction by fire of 
the immense forests that covered the island by 
the French in 1652, through sanitary motives, 
could not fail to have a marked and lasting 
effect upon the fauna and avi-fauna of an island, 
for so vast was the conflagration that the French 
settlers were compelled to retire to their ships 
until it was over. In the two other islands of 
this group, for instance, there occurs among 
the fauna the agouti (Dasyprocta) , and among 
the avi-fauna, in adition to all the species ob¬ 
taining in Ste. Croix, a species of parrot {Con- 
urns xantliolcemus ), both of which are unknown 
in Ste. Croix. Furthermore, in the latter island 
occur the dead shells of some dozen species of 
terrestrial mpllusks of which we find no single 
example inhabited by the living animal, though 
they are undoubtedly recent and not fossil 
forms. Hence we are led to suppose the exist¬ 
ence originally of a greater variety of animals 
than at present obtains in Ste. Croix. 
J. C. DuBois. 
Caught a Bear. 
Fred Smith caught a bear weighing over 200 
pounds recently about six miles from this village, 
says the Cheboygan (Mich.) County Era, and 
had it on exhibition at Ladd’s barber shop. The 
bear had been bothering people in that neigh¬ 
borhood a long time, carrying away good sized 
pigs, and it is said that it attempted to catch a 
small child who was near the woods picking: 
wild flowers. 
