Hunting field

“ 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. ”

“ Here, too, were most fair hunting grounds, offering the hunter choice between enclosed parks [5] and a wide expanse of field and fell; 16and all around there flowed a river full of fish of every sort; and for the sportsman versed in fowling, winged game in abundance. ”

“ This sketch of hunting would not be complete without mention of a necessary feature of every successful hunt—the division of the spoils. When the hunt is ended the game is carried back to the village before the division is made, provided the hunters are all from the same place. If two or more villages have hunted together the game is divided in the field. A bed of green rushes or cane is made on which the animal is placed and skinned. ”

“ When in palliation of the slaughter of a turkey that has robbed a field of his weight in corn they offset the destruction of hordes of field mice, they are reviled by those who are righteously exalted above the idleness of hunting and the foolishness of sentiment. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Their hunters and "Braves" repair thither in numerous bodies during the season of game, throw up their transient hunting camps, consisting of light bowers covered with bark and skins, commit sad havoc among the innumerable herds that graze the prairies, and having loaded themselves with venison and buffalo meat, warily retire from the dangerous neighborhood. These expeditions partake, always, of a warlike character; the hunters are all armed for action, offensive and defensive, and are bound to incessant vigilance. ”

“ His prodigious size and strength make him a formidable opponent; and his great tenacity of life often baffles the skill of the hunter, notwithstanding repeated shots of the rifle, and wounds of the hunting-knife.
One of the anecdotes related on this occasion, gave a picture of the accidents and hard shifts to which our frontier rovers are inured. A hunter, while in pursuit of a deer, fell into one of those deep funnel-shaped pits, formed on the prairies by the settling of the waters after heavy rains, and known by the name of sink-holes. ”

“ Deer were hunted in the fall; men moved away to the forest to catch the migrating animals. Sometimes women and children would be included in the hunting expedition, if the distance to be traveled was not too far from their summer home. But some people stayed in their summer residences through the hunting season, probably to harvest the last crop. Hunting sometimes lasted until the snow was too deep to move in. ”

“ 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. ”

“ I have sometimes wondered why some such large preserves of land, stretches of forest and meadow as are taken by clubs for shooting and fishing, are not set apart for hunting, in which it would be possible to hunt the stag and the fox or even to revive sports more old fashioned. ”

“ Communal hunting was supervised by a hunt master; and game, such as rabbits, peccary, and buffalo were surrounded by people in a circle and clubbed, shot or driven to hidden hunters, lassoed or run over a cliff or bank. Dogs were used for hunting as well as for watch dogs and pets. ”

“ Still Hunting is followed as a kind of trade by most of our frontier men. To be practised with success, it requires great activity, an expert management of the rifle, and a thorough knowledge of the forest, together with an intimate acquaintance with the habits of the Deer, not only at different seasons of the year, but also at every hour of the day, as the hunter must be aware of the situations which the game prefers, and in which it is most likely to be found, at any particular time. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Even if we descend to the consideration of such trivial matters as hunting, the case is still the same; for he will be most successful in the chase who is acquainted with the size and nature of the wood, and one familiar with the locality will be the most competent to superintend an encampment, an ambush, or a march. ”

“ Hunters hunting with incredible silver guns, skimming along the roads to the hills and the forests in fantastic vehicles, alighting by roadsides and lumbering across fields to timber stands; routing out the people from elms and oaks and maples and locusts and even sumac, flushing them out like rabbits and shooting them down in cold blood with blinding shards of bullets. ”

“ Here is a soft, velvety expanse of young grass, grateful shade under those spreading clumps; herds of large and varied game browsing within easy rifle range. Surely I must feel amply compensated now for the long southern detour I have made, when such a prospect as this opens to the view! No thorny jungles and rank smelling swamps are here to daunt the hunter, and to sicken his aspirations after true sport! No hunter could aspire after a nobler field to display his prowess. ”

“ He is the companion of sportsmen, and he delights, free as mountain air, to hunt on the hillside and in the prairie in winter over the vast ranges of snowy fields which in the few short months of spring and summer teem with flowers, and the frosty lakes which yield fish to his spear and net. There are few or no railways through his reservations to vex his repose, no great trains of miners with pick and rifle to drive away the moose and the buffalo, and hand the native hunter over to starvation. ”

“ Every waterfall or cataract has associated with it some legend or tradition. Its dense forests are the haunts of the bear and wolf, of the moose and reindeer, and many other valuable animals, in the excitement of hunting which he finds his chief delight.
To this land had come our three lads for sport and adventure, and we shall see how fully all their expectations were realised.
Chapter Two. Hudson Bay Company—Frank’s canoe mishap—Duck shooting—Clever Koona—Goose hunting—Queer battles. ”

“ The land as I knew it first had just been stripped naked by the hunters who swept away almost the whole of its native stock of bison, deer, and antelope, wild sheep and goats, together with the hunting animals, such as wolves and panthers who earned a living there. The land as I saw it next was overstocked with ponies, cattle and sheep, so that the grass was poor. The land as I saw it last was being fenced, watered and ploughed by pioneer settlers. In thirty years I witnessed the passing of the wilderness and its frontiersmen. ”

“ The boy was beginning to find out that hunting in the Northern woods was hard enough work. The tiny icicles one the branches hurt his eyes until he looked as though he had been crying and his heart thumped against its ribs as if it would break. ”

“ But the detachments whose especial duty it was to watch the frontier appeared to be under a spell, [Pg 280] for they passed their time in the usual light-hearted way, and went out shooting and hunting in large parties. They had never known the forest so full of game of all sorts before—wild buffalo, bears, wolves, deer, fawns—as it had been since "the woods had begun to talk," as they expressed it.
By the third day the distant sounds had altered their character, and were no longer like the ordinary noise made by sportsmen and their beaters, but more puzzling still. ”

“ The women had to go in parties down to the river in the valley and carry the heavy jars of water all the way up the hill to the huts. And the men had to beat a track through the woods and take the cattle down to drink at the stream, and guard them carefully going and coming for fear of wolves, every man carrying his weapons: and this kept the men at home and hindered them from hunting. ”

“ When all this is prepared, a great number of people assemble together, and forming a half circle around the forest, advance slowly, driving before them all the animals which it contains. These, finding themselves hard-pressed, run on, until they come to the fences, which they follow along, and thus enter the small enclosure to which they lead. Here there is no returning, as the hunters block up the narrow passage; the affrighted herd are compelled to enter the covered way of stakes, where they are easily killed with a spear.
The morning is the best time for hunting. ”

“ Thousands of acres of these pine lands have been chopped over, and the old slashings, having grown up to brush, brambles, and briars of various kinds, furnish excellent cover and feeding grounds for Cervus Virginianus.
True, it is difficult to see the game at any great distance in these thickets, unless the hunter take his stand on a high stump or log and wait until the deer come in sight. This is a favorite and very successful method of hunting with many who know how to choose location and time of day. ”

“ Its scanty population is engaged almost entirely in logging, lumber manufacturing, and hunting, the immense forest covering the face of the country abounding with deer, bear, wolves, foxes and other game. ”

“ He strolled about the open space, pausing now and then to survey through his glasses the snowy peaks which towered far into the sky to the westward, or at the lower hills to the north, where the gnarled pine, the dwarfed cedar, the rushing torrents and the gorges made up one of the many wild regions which abound over thousands of square miles of area. Abundance of game was there always with the added spice of danger from the dusky hunters who preferred to bag the white invaders in preference to deer, antelope, buffalo, or mountain sheep. ”

“ On the American Continent a sport known as fire-hunting is much followed. This mode of hunting is prosecuted at night. The hunter provides himself with a rifle, an old frying-pan, fastened to the end of a pole, and a good supply of resinous pine knots. These he ignites in the pan, and as the bright flame leaps up, he watches carefully for the gleam from the eyes of the deer amongst the dark shadows of the forest. ”

“ The emigrant swings a heavy axe of six pounds weight, incessantly, day in, and day out, against immense trees, in the heaviest forest, until he has opened the land to the rays of the sun, and prepared an amount of cyclopean labours for the power of fire, and the ox. The hunter clears no forests, the limits of which on the contrary, he carefully cherishes for his deer to range in. He seats himself down, with his lodge, in the borders of natural glades, or meadows, to plant his few hills of maize. ”

“ If there is a net, but no clogs, then, after making the incantation, he ties the grass on to the net as above mentioned. This appears to be the only ceremony in connection with hunting; and there is no food or other taboo associated with it, but some of the charms worn are intended to give success in hunting.
In spear hunting, when children and not dogs are employed, the children shout as soon as the animal has been found, and then retreat; and, when the animal has been found by either children or dogs, the hunting men attack it with their spears, if possible surrounding it. ”

“ These devices were also sometimes used for trapping moose, bears, wolves, wild cats and foxes. [46]
Most hunting was carried out during the fall, after a spring and summer of watching the habits and locations of the deer. [47] Ten to twenty or more men from a village would move into temporary quarters in the woods to hunt at this time, each man retiring to his own well-defined hunting territory of “... ”

“ They had shrunk from the advent of the latter, and as a rule were found only in isolated tracts which were useless for tillage or pasturage, the dense forest forming their habitual dwelling-place and retreat of safety. From the best hunting-grounds, those where the great game teemed, they had been driven; yet these hunting-grounds were often untenanted by human beings for much of the year, being visited only at certain seasons by the cattle-owning nomads. ”