Deer hide

“ If you should by chance come upon a beast unawares, stand stock still at once; don’t try to hide if it is a deer; don’t try to bolt if it is something more dangerous. If you stand still, beasts are slow to identify objects, and your deer may not be badly scared or your bear may pass on with only a suspicious stare; but if you attempt to hide, your deer will certainly show you his paces over fallen timber, or your bear or tiger if bad tempered may charge. ”

“ The American deer is hunted for its flesh, its hide, and “the sport.” There are many modes of hunting it. The simplest and most common is that which is termed “still” hunting. In this, the hunter is armed with his rifle or deer-gun—a heavy fowling-piece—and steals forward upon the deer, as he would upon any other game. “Cover” is not so necessary as silence in such a hunt. This deer, like some antelopes, is of a “curious” disposition, and will sometimes allow the hunter to approach in full view without attempting to run off. ”

“ If there is any danger from an enemy, the barking deer is small enough to hide in any little bush or behind a fallen tree or log; or else he can run away very quietly through the under bushes. And he runs so quickly that his enemy soon loses sight of him. ”

“ Occasionally a more animated scene presents itself; distant echo gives out the faint sound of the hunting-horn, and the cry of hounds; suddenly a frightened deer bursts from the neighbouring forest, stands for a few seconds in terrified alarm upon the frozen plain, then darts onward, and is quickly lost amid the thickets on the opposite side. The trampling of horses, the barking of dogs, are rapidly brought nearer by the breeze; and now, in their turn, a pack of dogs with brown and tawny-spotted skins issue from the brushwood from which the frightened deer but just now came ”

“ With this purpose, the deer will often make enormous leaps, or run around in a circle so as to confuse and puzzle his pursuers. He will mount a stone wall, and run along it for some distance, well aware that the dog cannot scent him so well on the rock as on the grass. If he can find a pond or stream of water, the deer will plunge in and swim a long distance, so that the dogs may lose his trail.
It is a joyful sound to the poor hunted deer when the dogs send up that sad, dismal howl, which they give utterance to when they have lost all scent of the deer, and despair of finding it. ”

“ But kind reader, you have seen enough of the still hunter. Let it suffice for me to add, that by the mode pursued by him, thousands of deer are annually killed, many individuals shooting these animals merely for the skin, not caring for even the most valuable portions of the flesh, unless hunger, or a near market, induce them to carry off the hams.
The mode of destroying deer by fire-light, or, as it is named in some parts of the country, forest-light, never fails to produce a very singular feeling in him who witnesses it for the first time. ”

“ To unravel their intricacies is a task to which only the memories of their makers are equal, and along them the deer flee like wraiths at any alarm. If close pressed by an enemy they will leap, light as birds, from one deep path to another, leaving no mark on the intervening barrier of snow, and breaking the trail effectually. Thus when the snow lies deep, the yard becomes their spacious citadel, and the despair of pursuing lynx or panther. A herd of deer well yarded, under the leadership of an old and crafty buck, will come safe and sleek through the fiercest wilderness winter. ”

“ I have met with many queer circumstances while on the trap line and trail, yet I have never met with any of those bloodcurdling and hair-breadth escapes from wild animals which are mostly "pipe dreams". Perhaps the nearest I ever came to being seriously hurt by a wild animal was from a large buck deer. It was in November and on a stormy day. I had killed a doe and was in the act of dressing the doe and was leaning over the deer at work. I was within a few feet of a fallen tree. ”

“ Even the little fawns, never so heedless as to miss a signal, felt something in the buck's attitude deeper than their play, something perhaps in the air that was not noticed before, and trotted after their mothers, fading away at last like shadows into the darkening woods.
On another lake, years before, when hunting in the same way without a gun, I saw another curious bit of deer wisdom. It must be remembered that deer are born apparently without any fear of man. ”

“ Thoughtless persons having heretofore caused such a wanton destruction of deer, laws have now been passed for their protection. The method adopted mostly among hunters of running game with hounds until exhausted, has a tendency to terrify the poor scared animals, thus making them more shy, and retire farther into the fastnesses of a country to a place of greater security. Old hunters say they would just as soon eat a piece of dog-meat as deer killed when overheated. ”

“ Five hundred years hence, when the greed and rapacity of "civilized" man has completed the loot and ruin of the continent of North America, the white-tailed deer will be the last species of our big game to be exterminated. Its mental traits, its size, its color and its habits all combine to render it the most persistent of our large animals, and the best fitted to survive. It neither bawls nor bugles to attract its enemies, it can not be called to a sportsman, like the moose, and it sticks to its timber with rare and commendable closeness. ”

“ By wolves especially entire herds of deer are thus destroyed, and whole yards depopulated in a single night. Panthers secrete themselves in the trees above the boughs overhanging the "yards," and, with stealthy movements, approach and pounce upon their unsuspecting prey. The blood-thirsty wolverine secretes himself in the nooks and by-ways to spring upon its tawny victim unawares. These, together with man, form the principal foes of the deer, and we can truthfully assert that the hunter is much more its enemy than the trapper. ”

“ The stalking is the most exciting sport in the world. I have frequently heard my own heart beat while creeping up to a deer. He is an animal of wonderful acuteness, and possessing the keenest scent; he is always on the alert, watching for danger from his stealthy foe the leopard, who is a perfect deer-stalker.
To kill spotted deer well, if they are tolerably wild, a person must be a really good rifle shot, otherwise wise he will wound many, but seldom bag one. They are wonderfully fast, and their bounding pace makes them extremely difficult to hit while running. ”

“ When alarmed he will detect the slightest movement of a small object, and, unless the hunter stands or lies perfectly still, his presence will be detected. If the hunter does not move, the deer will, after a short time, recover from his alarm and resume his grazing, when he may be again approached. The deer always exhibits his alarm by a sudden jerking of the tail just before he raises his head. I once saw a Delaware Indian walk directly up within rifle range of a deer that was feeding upon the open prairie and shoot him down ”

“ From such experiences one might reasonably conclude that, like the brooding grouse or the hidden fawn, a motionless man gives off so little scent that the keenest nose is at fault until it [227] comes almost within touching distance. If any further proof is needed, you may find it when you sleep in the open, and shy creatures draw near without any fear of you. By daylight deer, bear and moose are extremely timid; they rarely come within eyeshot of your camp, and they vanish at the first sniff which tells them that you have invaded their feeding-grounds. ”

“ The heavy forest offered a splendid hiding place, and they determined to remain there until daylight. The night passed without alarm, and at dawn they crossed the stream. Then they again set out along the trail.
"We must look sharp," cautioned Running Fox. "Perhaps scouts have stayed behind to watch. If they see us they will run to their people. Then they will kill Spotted Deer."
They saw nothing to arouse their suspicions, and at sunset they stopped at a little spring in the bottom of a wooded ravine. They soon found signs which made it plain that their foes had spent the night at that place. ”

“ Ever and anon a frightened deer or elk leaped past. The hounds no longer noticed them, but remained close to the horses. The leaping flames came in awful rapidity. The light increased in brilliance, and objects were distinguishable far over the prairie. A red glare could be seen on the sides of the deer as they bounded over the tall, dry grass, which was soon to be no longer a refuge for them. ”

“ A section of a log is sometimes slightly dug out at one end and the other inserted in the earth, the salt being placed in the hollow. The hunter secretes himself in a neighboring tree, sometimes erecting a bench or scaffolding for comfort, and, provided with gun and ammunition, he awaits the coming of the deer. Hunters say that a deer seldom looks higher than his head, and that a sportsman on one of these scaffoldings, even though he is clumsy in his movements, is seldom noticed by the animal. ”

“ In many places the hills are covered with an almost impenetrable chaparral of scrub oak, buckthorn, greasewood, manzanita, and deer-brush, in which the wary deer have taken refuge. In and through these, guided sometimes by the tracks of the deer, or encouraged by the presence of such tracks even if he cannot follow them, up steep mountains, exposed to the heat of the sun, in dust, over rocks, and without water, toils the hunter, who accounts himself lucky if, by tramping scores of miles through this sort of impediment, he succeeds, after days of toil, in killing his deer. ”

“ Once he has taken up that position nothing but a deer will make him show the least sign of life. He is to all intents a part of the tree limb, and the knowledge that all things "come to him who waits" is strongly fixed in his devil brain.
The deer passes, he drops on to him like a rock. Should he strike too far back, his cruel claws grip his way up toward the neck, and there he settles himself, a fixture, and cuts away at the large veins till the poor deer bleeds to death. ”

“ Thus all deer trails or runways lead, sooner or later, to a stream, a pond or lake, where the deer has a chance of evading pursuit of his natural enemy. Now, while the game laws forbid hunting deer with dogs, and while dogs are not allowed to enter forests inhabited by deer, yet the inherited instinct of self-preservation of the latter persists, and whenever alarmed by the appearance of man, who in the mind of a deer is still associated with his other enemy — the dog, he immediately starts down his trail to the nearest water. ”

“ The dog, hampered by brush and going only by scent, follows implicitly the trail. The deer runs, leaps high barriers, doubles on his tracks, stops to browse at a tempting bush, even waits for the dog to catch up with him, and leads him on in a merry chase. I feel sure that unless badly cornered or confused by a number of dogs or wolves, the deer does not often develop great fear, nor is he hard put to it in these episodes. Quite likely there is an element of sport in it with him.
Why men should kill deer is a moot question, but it is a habit of the brute. ”

“ The white-tailed deer saves its life by skulking low in timber and thick brush. This is why it so successfully resists the extermination that has almost swept the mule deer, antelope, white goat, moose and elk from all the hunting-grounds of the United States. Thanks to its alertness in seeing its enemies first, its skill and quickness in hiding, and its mental keenness in recognizing and using deer sanctuaries, the white- tailed or "Virginia" deer will outlive all the other hoofed animals of North America. ”

“ The alarm-cry of this deer is a peculiar whistling bark, a low but far-reaching sound; but when approaching a doe with young I have never been able to hear it, nor have I seen any movement on the part of the doe. Yet it is clear that in some mysterious way she inspires the fawn with sudden violent fear; while the fawn, on its side, instead of being affected like the young in other mammals, and sticking closer to its mother, acts in a contrary way, and runs from her. ”

“ On all such farms the deer have the scent of man almost constantly in their nostrils, and they are simply watchful, running when you approach too near, but turning after a short flight to have a look at you. At times you may see them feeding when the scent of laborers or fishermen blows fairly over them. But when October comes, and the law is “off,” and wild-eyed hunters appear with guns in their hands and death in their thoughts, then the same deer quickly become as other and wilder creatures, rushing off in alarm at the first sniff of an enemy. ”

“ They would either keep their place, and remain until the light came very near them, or they would move towards it (as he had many times known them to do) , attracted by curiosity and the novelty of the spectacle. He had hunted deer in the same manner; he had shot, he said, hundreds of these animals upon the banks of rivers, where they had come down to the water to drink, and stood gazing at the light.
His cousins could well credit his statements. They themselves had hunted deer by torchlight in the woods of Louisiana, where it is termed “fire-hunting.” They had killed several in this way. ”