nds, furnish themselves with provisions for several days, and
armed with ponderous and clumsy fowling-pieces, go in search of the wild
cat and the wolf, the roebuck and the boar.

On these occasions, as in all those where fire-arms are used, the
chapter of accidents is seldom without a page relating some sad history.
Two young men of the village of Akin, near Vezelay, one of whom was
engaged to the sister of his companion, having made their arrangements,
set out to hunt together in this manner, trusting that a heavy bag might
pay for the expenses of the wedding fete. As luck would have it, they
soon fell upon the traces of a boar, and separating at the entrance of a
dark ravine, to beat for and watch the animal, were lost to view. But a
short time had elapsed when the young man who was about to be married
observing, though not clearly, between the trees and bushes a large
black mass, which moved to and fro, and which he imagined was the boar
listening, brought his gun to his shoulder, and, firing, lodged two iron
slugs in the body of his comrade, who, advancing towards him, his
shoulders being covered with a black sheepskin, had stooped down for a
few seconds to tie the strings of his leggings, or his shoes.

When the trees are devoid of foliage and the snow covers the ground,
when the forest is melancholy and cold, and the wolves famished with
hunger, a rather original mode of taking them by night is adopted. A few
days previously to the one appointed for the purpose, a large glade in
the very thickest part of the forest having been selected, a carpenter
and his assistant, with a well-furnished bag of tools, start for the
spot. There, choosing some suitable trees, or branches of young
pollards, they cut down a sufficient number, place them in the ground so
as to form a hut of twelve yards square, leaving between each tree an
interval of about four inches; strengthening the edifice by beams at the
base, and boards nailed transversely seven feet from the ground.

This open hut thus prepared, and which, at fifty paces distance, ought
not, if well constructed, to be distinguishable from the trees, is left
open to the inspection of the beasts of the forest for several nights in
succession, in order that they, always suspicious of the most trifling
circumstance, may get accustomed to it. Two or three ducks, a goose, and
sometimes a sheep, are fastened during these nights near the hut, with a
view of alluring the wolves and