Rensselaer Republican, Volume 20, Number 34, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 26 April 1888 — SPORT INSANTA CRUZ. [ARTICLE]

SPORT INSANTA CRUZ.

What the Gunner Finds u Shoot at in tbe Famous Ram District Forest and Stream. |T Net long ago affairs obliged me very reluctantly to visit fßonta Cruz, and more from force of habit than any anticipation of hatiag much use for them, I stowed in my trank a shotgun and a rifle, with a plentiful Bnpply of ammunition. The matters which claimed my attention need not have detained me on the ielznd longer than the month of March, bnt it was the fat of June before I succeeded in tearing myself away from the beautifal place, and such a profusion and variety of game as never before fell in my way. Santa Cruz is now under Dansh government, but something like 150 years ago, when the English held temporary possession, au old colonial Governor of sporting proclivities conceived the idea of introducing an old world institution in the shape of a deer forest, for the exclusive use of himself and his ecu ft. -1' To this end he d'spalched a schooner to the coast of Ncrth America, from whence she returned freighted with a large and lively cwgr of Virginia deer (Ceivcs virginianufi) cf fceth seifs and all a>es. T at se were turned loose in a well woededand watered tract of laud to mult ply and increase after tbeir kind bnt hardly bad he began to enjoy the fruit of his enterprise when this energetic old Governor was gathered so his fathers, aud the epoit of hunting fell into desuetude. Freedom from mcleefotion, abundance o! food and a perfectly congenial c’imati have caused the deer to multiply to enormons numbers, until jat th j present time they are more common all over the island than cotton tails in New Jeisey. Besides deer there are quail, wild pigedhp, several varieties of doves, and in the winter months duck’, plover and snipe swarm in the canefields, woods, mountains and lagoons. On one occasion, daring a ride of fouiteeu milee, I counted dozens of forks of quail by the roadside, and no less than seven deer in sight at various periods of the journey; one of the lattar, a fuparb seven pronged buck, dfscended the grassy bank into the road not a hundred feet ahead of me, {topped half way acroip, {fared inquisitively, and then leituiely continued his way up the opposite bank, attaining the eminence of which he took another delibeiatilook at me and then with a frisky to ; s of his head and a wiggle of his wh ta tail trotted into the dense growth of sugar cane. I was entirely unarmed at thß timp, but had there been a w hole arsenal handy I should not have had the heait to violate his friendly confidence by {hooting him.