iance. As the shades grow
deeper, groups of the graceful roebuck, timid and listening for
anticipated danger, their large open eyes gazing at each tree, giving an
inquiring look at every shadow, are seen approaching with noiseless
footsteps; when reassured by their careful _reconnaissance_, they steal
forward, cropping the dewy rich flowers as they come, and at last slake
their thirst in the refreshing waters.

At this instant you may, if you are fatigued, and so desire it, finish
your day's sport. You may bring down the nearest buck; and then as the
troop, wild with affright, make for the forest, the second barrel will
add a fellow to your first victim.

But, no! pull not the trigger; stop, if only to witness what follows.
See the roebuck prick their ears; they turn to the wind; they appear
uneasy; call one to the other, assemble; danger is near, they feel it,
hear it coming; they would fly, but find it is too late; terrified, they
are chained to the spot. For the last half hour the wolves and
wolverines, which followed gently, and at a distance, their own more
rapid movements, have closed in upon them from behind, have formed the
fatal circle, have noiselessly decreased it as much as possible, and at
length come swiftly down upon the helpless creatures; each seizes his
victim by the throat, the tranquil spot is ere long full of blood and
carnage, and the echoes of the forest are awakened to the hellish yells
of the savage brutes that thus devour their prey.

The cries of agony, of death and victory, sometimes last for a quarter
of an hour; and during the fifteen minutes that you are watching the
scene from your hut, you may fancy the teeth of these brutes are meeting
in your own flesh, and feel a cold paw with claws of steel deep in your
back or head.

The slaughter over, these monsters pass like a flight of demons across
the turf, vanish,--and again all is silent. And when the tenth chime of
the distant village clock is floating on the breeze, though it reaches
not your cabin--when the falling dew, now almost a shower, has bathed
the leaves, with rain chilling their fibres--when the bluebells and the
foxgloves and all the wood-flowers rest upon their stems--when the
songsters of the grove, with heads comfortably tucked under their warm
wings, sleep soundly in their nests, or in the angles of the
branches--when the young fawns, lost in some wild ravine, bleat for
their mothers whom they never will see more; and th