Happy Hunting Ground

“ The hunters rise from their sleeping bags, make a hasty meal of coffee and cakes, and long before the light of dawn sweeps the eastern sky, they must be on the trail. Silently and alert they enter the land of suspected deer. Taking advantage of every bit of cover, traveling into the wind where possible, looking at every shadow, every spot of moving color, they advance. Where trails exist they follow these, or if the ground be carpeted with soft pine needles, they flit between the deeper shades of the forest, watchful, and hearing every woodland sound. ”

“ Part of the charm of hunting is the beauty of its surroundings. I know nothing prettier than the different scenes of a hunt. To watch the hounds put into covert, to stand at a corner and see down the ride the huntsman's red coat and all the hounds round him, among the brown leaves [Pg 15] on the ground and the dark trees in the background is simply a picture, and time after time in each hunting day such pictures appear, and delight the eye. ”

“ Hunting was not a mere ramble in pursuit of game, in which there was nothing of skill and calculation; on the contrary, the hunter, before he set out in the morning, was informed, by the state of the weather, in what situation he might reasonably expect to meet with his game; whether on the bottoms, sides or tops of the hills. In stormy weather, the deer always seek the most sheltered places, and the leeward side of the hills. In rainy weather, in which there is not much wind, they keep in the open woods on the highest ground. ”

“ Happy is the man of this stamp who reaches America. That is the land for him! A land of woods, of herds of deer, and turkeys, of bears and buffaloes. There he may roam the paradise of back settlements, and satiate his soul with hunting and shooting; with lying in wait, and with wild adventure, without fear of game-laws, and the obstructions of monopoly.
Others, again, have an indomitable passion for hunting otters, badgers, polecats, rats, hedgehogs, and similar tenants of out-of-the-way dales, river-sides, thickets and plantations ”

“ All the able-bodied men—and they numbered nearly a hundred—set out together for their favorite hunting-ground, where they stationed themselves at intervals in a rude circle about a strip of field and forest two or three square miles in extent. Then, at the signal of the chieftain's shout relayed from man to man, the hunters started at a trot toward the center of the circle, meanwhile yelling and clamoring at the top of their lusty voices and raising a hullabaloo that might have awakened the dead. ”

“ To the hunter without a gun there is no close season on any game, and a doe and her fawns are better hunting than a ten-point buck. By land or water he is always ready; there are no labors for effects, except what he chooses to impose upon himself; no disappointments are possible, for whether his game be still or on the jump, shy as a wilderness raven or full of curiosity as a blue jay, he always finds something to stow away in his heart in the place where he keeps things that he loves to remember. ”

“ Behind Moto strode the Watuta hunters, one after another, some of them armed with shields, besides their handfuls of spears and quivers fall of arrows.
Merriness is what distinguishes the conduct of all hunting parties, whether white or black, while on the way to the chase or the hunt. Pleasures unlimited are anticipated, and happy sport is expected, and this anticipation and expectation are what produce so many good jokes, and wit, and fun, and raillery, or, as the English call it, “chaff,” when the hunting-field has not yet been reached and all feel bright and fresh. ”

“ As a hunting-ground the Great North Wilderness, as it is often called, is probably the best now to be found anywhere in the United States, abounding as it does in deer, bear, panther, wolf, wolverene, and immense numbers of smaller game, so that whether lost or found, a man with a loaded gun need never go hungry in the Adirondacks. ”

“ For a whole year they lived together in perfect happiness, and two children came to bless their union—a boy and a girl born at the same hour. When they were but a month old, they could run; and to see them leaping and playing before the door of their home made the huntsman’s heart jump for joy. “They are forest-born, and they come of a hunter’s blood; that is why they run so early, and have such limbs,” said he.
“Yes,” answered his wife, “that is partly why. When they grow older they will run so fast—do not mistake them for deer if ever you go hunting.” ”

“ Contrast the pleasure that the man with no idea beyond his boots, coat, tie, galloping and jumping, extracts from a day’s hunting, with that which the man who is a genuine “hunter” obtains. Putting aside the social pleasures of the chase, the meeting of friends by the covert side, and the incidents of interest and amusement in the field, the pleasure of the one is dependent on being well mounted in a good country after a straight-necked fox; and he is an exacting and hypercritical follower of hounds. ”

“ We found it not only a delightful way of hunting, but a trio makes success more certain in the field.
In California there is an abundance of game; small animals exist everywhere and there is no better training than to stalk the wary ground squirrel or the alert cottontail. These every archer should school himself to hit before he ventures after larger beasts.
Infinite patience and practice are needed to make a hunter. He must earn his right to take life by the painful effort of constant shooting. ”

“ To spend half your life standing by a gorse watching a huntsman sauntering about, evidently equally pleased if he can catch a fox within its precincts as in the open; to march leisurely from one draw to the next; to see hounds kept to the skulking fox when old Cæsar has taken the open; to follow a pottering hunt through hand-gates and across fences, when the huntsman’s course is pioneered by timber-felling and gap-making servants, is not hunting.
There are few ideal huntsmen. There is many a good kennel-huntsman, many a good rider to hounds who carries the horn ”

“ HOW AN HUNTER SHOULD GO IN QUEST BETWEEN THE PLAINS AND THE WOOD
Also a man may go in quest in the fields in corn, in vines, in gardens, and in other places, where the harts go to their pasture in the fields out of the wood, and he must go forth right early so that he may look at the ground and judge well, and if he sees anything that pleases him he can break boughs and lay his mark and cast round as before is said. ”

“ A fine field of hunters in their scarlet coats, rushing over forest, heath, fence or stream, on noble steeds, and with a pack of beautiful dogs in full cry, is a very picturesque and animating spectacle.
Through the winter, then, up to the very approach of spring, hunting offers whatever charms it possesses; pheasant, woodcock and snipe shooting, in the woods and by the streams, are in all their glory. It is the time for pursuing all manner of wild fowl, in fens and along the sea-coast ”

“ No, it is not the pace of a run, the distance from point to point, or the perfection of the country, that make up the whole sport of hunting. The sport consists in the meeting of the hound and the animal hunted on nature’s own terms in a free field with no favour, and in being there to see the struggle. And to the man with real hunting instinct, no steeplechase after aniseed or a bagman can give the satisfaction and delight of the success in accounting for a wild-bred fox, whether the day be bright or dull, the scent hot or cold. ”

“ I said, taking out my pocket-book and struggling to my knees in six inches of mud, "but when you rather abruptly started away from covertside, I was just about to remark that I did not think you were a subscriber, and that I should have much pleasure in taking the customary 'cap'—thank you." And he paid up quite meekly. We agreed, as we rode back together, in the direction in which we imagined hounds to be, that even if they had got away with a good fox, the field would not be likely to have had so smart a gallop as he and I had already enjoyed. Lost my day's hunting, of course. ”

“ As I have said before, hunting, especially in our eastern states, is not what it was years ago. Almost all of the big game has disappeared, and the fellow who can get a deer or a moose without going a good many weary miles for the game is lucky. Yet in some sections small game is still fairly plentiful, and a bag full of rabbits or wild ducks is much better than nothing. ”

“ All the fun of hunting lies in the adventurous life in the jungle, the chance in many cases of the animal hunting you instead of you hunting the animal, the interest of tracking him up, stalking him and watching all that he does and learning his habits. ”

“ STILL-HUNTING.Still-hunting is a more arduous business. The hunter has the work to do of finding the deer; his rifle must slay it; if he wounds it, he must follow it on foot; the only help he can get is that of one steady old dog, which must never stray from his side.
Starting from his camp in the early dawn, he mounts the hill-side, carefully examining each likely spot of brush as he passes it, taking special note of each sheltered patch of fern. Very carefully he climbs the logs, avoiding every dead branch that may crackle under his weight, and parting the brush before he pushes through. ”

“ In the old and experienced hunter, who goes with them on this never-to-be-forgotten outing, they find a companion exactly to their liking, and one who teaches them not a few “points” about hunting that are worth knowing.
The scene of this tale is laid in one of our eastern states. A few years ago small game of all kinds was plentiful there, and deer, moose, and even bears, could also be laid low. But some of the larger animals are fast disappearing, and it is now only a question of time when they will be wiped out altogether. ”

“ It certainly has every element of rational outdoor recreation. It ministers to the most exhilarating and healthful exercise; it furnishes saving relief from care and overwork; it is free from wantonness and inexcusable destruction of animal life, and, if luck favors, it gives play to innocent but gratifying self-conceit.
Let us remember, however, that if rabbit hunting is to be a manly outdoor recreation, entirely free from [Pg 161] meanness, and a sport in which a true hunter can indulge without shame, the little cotton-tail must in all circumstances be given a fair chance for his life. ”

“ This substitute, however, cannot fairly be termed sport, though it supplies excitement. It is, in fact, not very different from a steeple-chase, but produces utterly different sensations from those which are engendered when hunting the wildest of wild game in a country where man is so rarely seen that he is gazed at as an intruder, and where hunting is a practical reality and necessity as a means of subsistence, upon which the hunter depends, and not as a mere pastime to kill a few hours, or to endeavour to obtain a little excitement. ”

“ Few hunting men calculate how much they owe to the hunting farmer, or recognize the fact that hunting farmers contribute more than any other class of sportsmen towards the maintenance of the sport. It is hardly too much to say that hunting would be impossible if farmers did not hunt. If they were inimical to hunting, and men so closely concerned must be friends or enemies, there would be no foxes left alive; and no fox, if alive, could be kept above ground. ”

“ The Judge stood the supper in consideration of quail on toast being incorporated in the menu, and we sat around the festive board in the Queen's Arms a week later, and talked over our Xmas Eve hunting match. No one was disposed to question the sentiment in a speech by the Doc, who declared: “Fellows, our prowess as a gun club is growing, and I verily believe the old district is getting to be once more something like a half-decent hunting ground. ”

“ In one hunt the very number who turn out, or a tactless Master, spoil the sport, while in another the field [Pg 173] consists, in the main, of farmers who take a neighbourly delight in riding over each other’s holdings. Whenever you see a hunt where wheat and seeds are ridden over more ruthlessly than usual, you may be sure it is a farmer’s country.
There are as many ways of hunting a country as there are styles of riding a horse. The object of one huntsman is to kill foxes, of another to give his field a run, of another to see hounds work. ”

“ Such being the case, no wonder that the numbers of horsemen increase every day, and that the hunting field, from the select company of a few country squires and hard-riding young men, has developed into an unruly mob of people, who ride over the hounds, crush together in the gateways, and follow like a flock of sheep through the gaps and over the fences, negotiated by more skilful or courageous sportsmen. ”

“ Havoc and I shot down the road, passing the blustering field; and, hopping over a gap, we found ourselves close to the hounds, who were running hell-for-leather towards a handsome country seat perched upon a hill. A park is what I hate most out hunting: hounds invariably lose the line, the field loses its way and I lose my temper. ”

“ A gentler spirit has since dawned upon the world, and now most game laws shelter as well the song bird as the wild boar and the stag. The true hunter derives more pleasure in watching the natural life around him than in killing the game that he meets. ”

“ The lords of our land to this hunting have gone, As the fox-hunter follows the sound of the horn; Hark! the cheer and the hallo! the crack of the whip, And the yell of the hound as he fastens his grip! All blithe are our hunters, and noble their match, Though hundreds are caught, there are millions to catch. So speed to their hunting, o'er mountain and glen, Through cane-brake and forest,—the hunting of men! Gay luck to our hunters! how nobly they ride In the glow of their zeal, and the strength of their pride! ”