808 
FOREST AND STREAM. 
[May 27, 1911. 
the velvet from their horns, and apparently 
spoiling for a fight, try these new horns on 
sundry small trees and bushes. The end of this 
month finds the master stag collecting his 
wives, and the more does he can add to his 
harem the prouder he probably feels. 
The rut lasts nearly all the month of October, 
and a wise Newfoundland law makes a close 
season from the 1 st to the 20 th of the month, 
for to shoot the foolish and crazy stags at this 
period would be anything but sport. I think 
the weather has some connection with the 
duration of the rut, for in many cases last 
November I saw stags still with the does—the 
weather being warm and sultry possibly ac¬ 
counting for this. The season is not one en¬ 
tirely of love making, for the master must be 
prepared to defend his property from any 
wandering or envious stag and sometimes he 
meets defeat and is driven off. The does ap¬ 
parently are indifferent as to their master 
they will, during the progress of a battle royal, 
lie down and chew the cud and show absolutely 
no emotion if the original stag be routed. 
Young stags will be allow'ed to hang around the 
outskirts of the herd, but the master stag has 
his eyes on them all the time. You can usually 
see the young fellows as a rule on little rises 
or hills not far away, and where they can see 
everything going on. Sometimes, as I ob¬ 
served, a doe will evince a desire to visit the 
young stag, but the master with a few well 
directed prods of his antlers causes her to re¬ 
main loyal. 
It is claimed the stag does not eat in the 
rutting season, and I can readily believe it; he 
is too busy to feed. Then again his body shows 
this; those I obtained at the end of October 
or in early November were very thin, poor, 
and the meat uneatable. In September they 
have from two to three inches of fat on the 
back and loins, and a big fellow will weigh 600 
pounds, but in about four weeks’ time this has 
all disappeared. 
After the rut they move about, and this is the 
season for the hunter to be afield and see the 
deer in numbers. A cold spell or snow will 
also start them moving. I found the caribou 
the easiest to approach for a shot or a photo¬ 
graph of any of our deer, and if the wind is 
right you can do almost anything with them. 
They seem to have no faith in their eyesight or 
else are very stupid, for a number of times I 
have used up my films and replaced same in 
the camera with deer a hundred yards or less 
away and watching me without their going off. 
And the time I got my best head four does 
came out within seventy-five yards and watched 
me stalk and kill the beast. 
Their sense of hearing may be acute, but I 
saw no evidence of it, and several times we 
made noisy approaches without driving them 
away; however, the wind on this high country 
blows almost continuously and creates more or 
less noise, to which probably the deer become 
accustomed. What they lack, however, in their 
other senses they make up in their power of 
smell—let them scent a man and off they go 
with no great likelihood of stopping for a mile 
or so—even a man’s track a day old starts them 
moving, and this means that a man in traveling 
about uses up considerable country in a few 
days. 
It is not very often that a man is obliged to 
take long shots—my furthest was at 150 yards 
and because the game was disturbed, but most 
shots may be taken inside 100 yards. The In¬ 
dians with their shot-and-ball guns refuse shots 
over forty or fifty yards. When you read of a 
man’s shooting at and hitting in a fading light 
the forehead of a stag at three or four hundred 
yards, do not believe it; there was no occasion 
for the long shot. Distances I found are in 
many cases over-estimated up there; as, for in¬ 
stance, the distance from one point to another 
in a march; the height of trees; the width of 
rivers and the flattering estimate often made 
by one’s guide of the length of your shot. 
Many times my guide and I have lain and 
watched deer seventy-five to a hundred yards 
away, counted the points and passed on the 
quality of a stag’s head and withdrawn without 
disturbing them. On several occasions they 
have seen 11 s, but while they rose to their feet 
they did not run off. Twice I remember almost 
stumbling on old stags in scattered timber; the 
second one had heard us and was waiting for 
us to push into view, and even then he stood 
long enough for us to pass on his horns and I 
to refuse the guide’s earnest request to “give 
he a gun.” 
The actual hunting of these great beasts is 
carried on in various ways and may be made 
easy or hard as the hunter desires. In August 
the horns are still in velvet so no one disturbs 
them then; but late in September the heads 
make grand trophies, though until the stags 
start chasing the does they are not much in 
evidence. Late October or early November is 
the time to see them in numbers and any man 
in the right country can make his selection. No 
one can expect to hunt caribou successfully in 
the woods, for such timber land as I saw con¬ 
sisted principally of small spruce, balsam and 
white birch and growing so close together that 
you could not see fifty feet ahead and the down 
and rotten trees made still-hunting a farce. A 
very easy way of getting your game is to have 
it come to you; that is, you select a camping 
site near some open ground having well 
traveled leads and keep a man on watch all the 
time either up a tree or on a lookout hill. When 
he reports caribou you crawl out and make 
your observations; if a stag and good enough, 
you shoot him; otherwise, you turn him down 
and return to your pipe and novel. 
River hunting, as must be practiced along 
such streams as the Gander, requires quick 
judgment and quick shooting. The banks are 
well wooded until you come to the burnt coun¬ 
try, and your only chance is when a caribou 
pokes out to wander along the shore or cross 
the stream. It is unlawful to kill deer in the 
water, so if you decide the head is one you 
want, you must act promptly and take him 
either before or after he crosses the river. But 
after all there is only one way that wiil appeal 
to Mie venturesome sportsman; he will try to 
get away in the country as far as possible from 
the beaten path and seek the game in its haunts. 
And he will have the grand satisfaction in se¬ 
curing his heads that he and not the game did 
the hunting. This method, dependent of course 
on the direction of the wind, will necessitate 
considerable traveling early and late and over a 
different line of country each day, for caribou 
will clear out of man-tainted country. This will 
take him to many interesting spots; great pink 
and white barrens covered with lichen-covered 
granite boulders and everywhere the reindeer 
moss, a lichen which forms one of the principal 
foods of the caribou; over extensive golden 
brown marshes studded with little gems of 
tree- or rock-encircled ponds. Or he will float 
on great lakes where few but the Indians have 
ever paddled, and it was on the shores of such 
a lake that the remnant of the original Indians, 
the Beothics, in disgust at their treatment by 
the white man, withdrew to themselves and 
perished to a man. 
The pathway into this sportsman’s paradise 
leads up winding streams where boiling and 
rugged waterfalls necessitate portages, and one 
never knows what game may appear at the next 
turn. Then he will stalk his game in vast 
solitudes where man seldom comes and only 
the beasts of the field and birds of the air call 
it home. It is said that the first trip a man 
makes to a new country he gets experience; 
the second time he gets his game; if this is so, 
then I am doubly fortunate, for not only did I 
get the former, which I will use to advantage 
on another trip some day, but I also got the 
game, and among my trophies was a forty-one 
point head, the best one brought into St. Johns 
up to the time I sailed for home. My three 
heads were obtained by very similar work, so 
the story of the capture of one will answer for all. 
We were camped in the edge of a fairly large 
piece of woods stretching up from Deer—or as 
it is now known, Millais — Lake, and named 
after the artist-naturalist who camped there 
a few years ago and close by one of the many 
nameless ponds. To the north of us and run¬ 
ning east and west was a low flat valley com¬ 
mencing over toward the famous Island Pond 
and terminating in a large marsh close by 
Millais Lake. Across the valley, which con¬ 
tained more or less scattered spruce and bal¬ 
sam, we could see on the far ridges immense 
marshes which looked white in the sunlight and 
which my man claimed was good deer country, 
so one day, after having beaten up all the nearer 
ground and turned down a dozen warrantable 
stags, we started early for the distant ridge. 
Saunders, with lunch bag and kettle slung on 
his back and ax in hand, led the way around 
ponds, over streams and up through the 
“tucks” and timber of the valley until after a 
bit we came in sight of caribou. These proved 
to be feeding does, but we watched them for 
some time in hopes of a stag being with them. 
Then we continued our traveling, and presently 
coming out on a marsh I saw what I took to 
be a rock, but a second glance made it a cari¬ 
bou, and when he stood up and looked at us 
he proved a stag. His horns looked pretty 
good to me, and I thought I could distinguish 
two brow antlers, but he showed signs of 
nervousness, so I had to shoot before I was 
really satisfied. Quickly resting the rifle against 
a balsam, I fired at the center of his breast. 
At this he ran and I fired again, dropping him 
to the shot. He fell with his nose buried deep 
in the moss and his hind legs stretched out be¬ 
hind and was dead when we reached him. 
While I was pleased at the workmanlike way 
in which I had killed him, my first shot, as I 
found on examination, ripping his heart; my 
second and unnecessary shot taking him in the 
spine—still I was disappointed and sorry when 
I examined him. I had made the mistake a 
