United States or Russia ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Another of these marsh-deer swam the river ahead of us; I shot at it as it landed, and ought to have got it, but did not.
On the bare, open, treeless plain, whether marsh, meadow, or upland, anything above the level of the grass is seen at once. A marsh-deer out in the open makes no effort to avoid observation; its concern is purely to see its foes in time to leave a dangerous neighborhood. The deer of the neighboring forest skulk and hide and lie still in dense cover to avoid being seen.
Indeed, it seems hard to believe that in their ordinary environments such color schemes as the bright red of the marsh-deer, the black of the black jaguar, and the black with white stripes of the great tamandua, are not positive detriments to the wearers. Yet such is evidently not the case.
Kermit took Nips off with him for a solitary hunt one day. He shot two of the big marsh-deer, a buck and a doe, and preserved them as museum specimens. They were in the papyrus growth, but their stomachs contained only the fine marsh-grass which grows in the water and on the land along the edges of the swamps; the papyrus was used only for cover, not for food.
As always with these marsh-deer and as with so many other deer I was struck by the revealing or advertising quality of its red coloration; there was nothing in its normal surroundings with which this coloration harmonized; so far as it had any effect whatever it was always a revealing and not a concealing effect.
For an hour we went through thick jungle, where the machetes were constantly at work. Then the trail struck off straight across the marshes, for jaguars swim and wade as freely as marsh-deer. It was a hard walk. The sun was out. We were drenched with sweat. We were torn by the spines of the innumerable clusters of small palms with thorns like needles.
As regards arms, a good plain 12-bore shotgun with a 30-30 rifle- barrel underneath the others is the best weapon to have constantly in one's hand in the South American forests, where big game is rare and yet may at any time come in one's path. When specially hunting the jaguar, marsh-deer, tapir, or big peccary, an ordinary light repeating rifle the 30-30, 30-40, or 256 is preferable.
Word Of The Day