These are spots where the earth is impregnated with
saline particles, or where the salt-water oozes through the soil. Deer
and other grazing animals frequent such places, and remain for hours
licking the earth. The hunter secretes himself here, either in the thick
top of a tree, or most generally in a screen erected for the purpose,
and artfully concealed, like a mask-battery, with logs or green boughs.
This practice is pursued only in the summer, or early in the autumn, in
cloudless nights, when the moon shines brilliantly, and objects may be
readily discovered. At the rising of the moon, or shortly after, the
deer having risen from their beds approach the lick. Such places are
generally denuded of timber, but surrounded by it; and as the animal is
about to emerge from the shade into the clear moonlight, he stops,
looks cautiously around and snuffs the air. Then he advances a few
steps, and stops again, smells the ground, or raises his expanded
nostrils, as if "he snuffed the approach of danger in every tainted
breeze." The hunter sits motionless, and almost breathless, waiting
until the animal shall get within rifle-shot, and until its position, in
relation to the hunter and the light, shall be favourable, when he fires
with an unerring aim.
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