The hunting of Deer, everywhere north of the Potomac, is, in my opinion, vastly slow work, lacking alike the animation, the pomp, and spirit-stirring bustle of the chase proper, and the quickly-recurring excitement, and rapid occurrence of game, peculiar to the shooting field.It is practiced for the most part by two modes, driving and still-hunting, of which I consider the last, in general, by far the most legitimate and exciting, as it demands both skill in woodcraft, and endurance, on the part of the hunter; whereas [p 242] the other requires only the patience of Job, added to enough skill with the gun to knock over a great beast, as big as a Jackass, and as timid as a Sheep, with a heavy charge of buck-shot.The former mode is practiced, almost exclusively in Pennsylvania, where the hunters are very apt to shoot hounds on account of their disturbing the forests, and driving the Deer off the ranges, as also in the southern tiers of counties in New York; on Long Island, and to the eastward, as also with some small variation of mode, in Hamilton county, and the northern section of the State.

On Long Island, especially, at Snedecor’s and Carman’s, where excellent hotels are kept for the accommodations of city sportsmen, it is usual to collect large parties, often numbering twenty or thirty guns. All the Deer-paths and run-ways are perfectly well known to the hunters and drivers, and the comparative excellence of them thoroughly ascertained. The stations at these are, therefore, meted out by lot to the sportsmen, some of whom have thus a fair chance of getting a shot in the course of a whole day’s weary watch to leeward of Deer-path, while against others the odds are, perhaps, a hundred to one against their so much as hearing the distant bay of a hound.

Meantime the hounds are uncoupled, the drivers enter the woods, and endeavor to force the quarry to the known passes, at which the gallant cits. wait patiently, or impatiently, as it may  be, with little or no excitement; beyond the knowledge, that if they are detected indulging in a cigar, or in firing an unwise shot at any passing small game, much more in being absent from their stand when a Deer – if any – crosses it, or missing him if present under arms, they will be fined a dozen of Champagne at dinner, for the benefit of the company; whereas, if they succeed in killing Hart or Hind, they will be rewarded by the hide and horns, and by the permission to buy the venison at auction in the evening, if they bid more for it than their unsuccessful neighbors.

I was once present at one of these Epping hunts ((The Epping Hunt was an annual Easter Monday event in England where Londoners got to hunt deer in Epping Forest.  Before Herbert left England, it was deridingly called the Cockney Hunt by “true” sportsmen . It was more gently mocked in Thomas Hood’s 1829 poem The Epping Hunt.)) of America’s cockneys, and I most assuredly shall never be present at another. [p 243] There is certainly no sublimity about them, unless it be the sublimity of the ridiculous; and I believe that now-a-days few persons worthy of the name of sportsmen honor these travestied battues ((from the French for “beat”, as in the type of deer hunting at Snedecors, driving deer towards the hunters))with their presence. High living by day, high play at night, soft pillows in the morning, with just enough sporting to serve as an excuse, are the great inducements to New-York gunners to visit “the Island,” unless it be for Fowl shooting, which is really fine, and a sport worthy of a sportsman, or for the kindred amusement of Trout fishing with the fly, in waters which it is no easy matter to surpass anywhere, either for the excellence of their stocking, or the quality of their fish.

For the rest, I can conceive nothing more lugubriously dull than a Long Island Deer-hunt. It is just the thing for a Broadway dandy, and for nothing on the broad earth beside.