from the top of
the banks pick off the deer at leisure with their rifles, and haul them
away to market, until the enclosure is pretty much emptied. This is one
of the surest methods of exterminating the deer; it is also one of
the most merciful; and, being the plan adopted by our government for
civilizing the Indian, it ought to be popular. The only people who
object to it are the summer sportsmen. They naturally want some pleasure
out of the death of the deer.

Some of our best sportsmen, who desire to protract the pleasure of
slaying deer through as many seasons as possible, object to the practice
of the hunters, who make it their chief business to slaughter as many
deer in a camping season as they can. Their own rule, they say, is
to kill a deer only when they need venison to eat. Their excuse is
specious. What right have these sophists to put themselves into a desert
place, out of the reach of provisions, and then ground a right to slay
deer on their own improvidence? If it is necessary for these people
to have anything to eat, which I doubt, it is not necessary that they
should have the luxury of venison.

One of the most picturesque methods of hunting the poor deer is called
"floating." The person, with murder in his heart, chooses a cloudy
night, seats himself, rifle in hand, in a canoe, which is noiselessly
paddled by the guide, and explores the shore of the lake or the dark
inlet. In the bow of the boat is a light in a "jack," the rays of which
are shielded from the boat and its occupants. A deer comes down to feed
upon the lily-pads. The boat approaches him. He looks up, and stands a
moment, terrified or fascinated by the bright flames. In that moment the
sportsman is supposed to shoot the deer. As an historical fact, his hand
usually shakes so that he misses the animal, or only wounds him; and the
stag limps away to die after days of suffering. Usually, however,
the hunters remain out all night, get stiff from cold and the cramped
position in the boat, and, when they return in the morning to camp,
cloud their future existence by the assertion that they "heard a big
buck" moving along the shore, but the people in camp made so much noise
that he was frightened off.

By all odds, the favorite and prevalent mode is hunting with dogs. The
dogs do the hunting, the men the killing. The hounds are sent into the
forest to rouse the deer, and drive him from his cover. They climb the
mountains, strike the trails, and