The Baltimore County union. [volume] (Towsontown, Md.) 1865-1909, 1903-01-17
WILD ANIMALS.

Trailing deer is one of the finest
sports of America, either up in the
SHOWS of Manitoba or down in the
south and west, where the black-tail-
ed deer abound in the hills, says M.
Tindall, in Pearson S Magazine. The
deer is swift and cunning, and the
hunter must needs be strong in wind
and limb to follow where he leads.
and very wise to unravel the story of
his footprints.
The elegant hoof- mark of the deer
could never be anything but a deer's
imprint to the old hunter-but men
may live for years in places where
deer are found, and yet, on coming
across footprint, be unable to deter
mine whether it was made by deer
or by sheep or a pig. pa % peplosp
footprints of deer, shed
seen singly, are remarkably alike,
and only an expert can tell the one
from the other.
To trail deer successfully needs the
cunning of the North American In
dian, who knows from the mere touch
and smell of the track not only how
long ago the track was made; but
also the size and condition of the deer
who made it The hunting Indian
is as cunning as the hunted deer
himself; he seems to enter into the
very workings of the brute mind.
The first mistake made by the
young deer huuter is to follow too
closely on his game. If the hunter
watches the trail at his feet, instead
of looking ahead, he may stumble on
his deer unawares.
This is what the boy hunter did in
Mr.. Thompson Seton's little story of
1.-The Sandhill Stag
Sneaking along, watching the
tracks at his feet, he was so startled
when the big-eared, grayish animal
he was after sprang suddenly up be-
fore him that he could only stand
still and gaze as they bounded away,
rising higher and higher at each
bound. Then, when he goes to ex-
anime their trail, he reads wonder
fu1 story. Between one track and
the next he finds blank space of IS
feet, then another blank after the
next track, the blank increasing to IS
feet, then to 20, to rs and sometimes
even to 80.
The tracks made by running deer
have spaces between them of from IS
to 80 feet
Running deer are wingless birds.
"They do not run at all, they fly"
said Mr.. Thompson Seton, "and once
in awhile come down again to tap
the hilltops with their dainty hoofs. .
If the hnnter always followed on
the deer's trail he might follow for
thousands of miles without having
shot. He must leave the trail when
it grows new and hot, make detour
and lie up in ambush in front. By
clever maneuvering strong man
can always run down the swiftest
deer, and then at the end of long
chase the shortened blanks between
the tracks will tell story of deer
grown weary.
The deer often goes back on his
own trail. Sometimes, when the
track is dim, it is hard to tell which
way it leads. But the footprint is a
little sharper at the toe than at the
heel, and when the trail leads over a
hill the hunter can always tell which
way the animal came, for if he went
up the hill his spaces would be short,
through the labor of climbing.
All manner Of tricks are played by
hunted deer who know what they are
hunted. One thing they often do is
to return little way along their own
track, and then, making a great leap
to one side, race away in another di-
rection. Sometimes when hard press
ed deer repeat this vancouver time
after time. finally lying down to rest
(having bounded aside from the last
trail) in a spot where they can smell
and hear the hunter long before he
comes dangerously near. The hunter,
constantly finding himself on cold
scents, must patiently unravel all the
twisted story by the deer's feet, bark
ing back on the cold scents until he
finds where the real trail begins anew