Hunting The Deer In The Adirondacks Is Conducted In The Most Manly
Fashion.
There are several methods, and in none of them is a fair
chance to the deer considered.
A favorite method with the natives is
practiced in winter, and is called by them "still hunting." My idea
of still hunting is for one man to go alone into the forest, look
about for a deer, put his wits fairly against the wits of the
keen-scented animal, and kill his deer, or get lost in the attempt.
There seems to be a sort of fairness about this. It is private
assassination, tempered with a little uncertainty about finding your
man. The still hunting of the natives has all the romance and danger
attending the slaughter of sheep in an abattoir. As the snow gets
deep, many deer congregate in the depths of the forest, and keep a
place trodden down, which grows larger as they tramp down the snow in
search of food. In time this refuge becomes a sort of "yard,"
surrounded by unbroken snow-banks. The hunters then make their way
to this retreat on snowshoes, and from the top of the banks pick off
the deer at leisure with their rifles, and haul them away to market,
until the enclosure is pretty much emptied. This is one of the
surest methods of exterminating the deer; it is also one of the most
merciful; and, being the plan adopted by our government for
civilizing the Indian, it ought to be popular. The only people who
object to it are the summer sportsmen. They naturally want some
pleasure out of the death of the deer.
Some of our best sportsmen, who desire to protract the pleasure of
slaying deer through as many seasons as possible, object to the
practice of the hunters, who make it their chief business to
slaughter as many deer in a camping season as they can. Their own
rule, they say, is to kill a deer only when they need venison to eat.
Their excuse is specious. What right have these sophists to put
themselves into a desert place, out of the reach of provisions, and
then ground a right to slay deer on their own improvidence? If it is
necessary for these people to have anything to eat, which I doubt, it
is not necessary that they should have the luxury of venison.
One of the most picturesque methods of hunting the poor deer is
called "floating." The person, with murder in his heart, chooses a
cloudy night, seats himself, rifle in hand, in a canoe, which is
noiselessly paddled by the guide, and explores the shore of the lake
or the dark inlet. In the bow of the boat is a light in a "jack,"
the rays of which are shielded from the boat and its occupants. A
deer comes down to feed upon the lily-pads. The boat approaches him.
He looks up, and stands a moment, terrified or fascinated by the
bright flames.
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