Once more I bathe myself in the golden rays of the mid-day sun; I tread again the forest paths, and am intoxicated with the delicious perfume of its wild flowers. Hark! again I hear the cooing of the amorous doves, and in the distance the notes of the dull cuckoo, bewailing his solitary life.--But no more.... The _Mares_, very different from one another, and having each of them very different admirers, are of three kinds; they are either small or large, near or distant from the village or neighbouring hamlet; and according as they are circumstanced in one or other of these respects they are more or less valuable. The largest, the deepest, the least known, those in short that are situated in the recesses of the forest, are the best and most frequented by game; to balance this advantage they are the most fatiguing and the most difficult to approach. In the violent heats of July and August, when the sun burns up the herbage, when the wind as it passes parches the skin, and the sultry air scarcely allows the lungs to play--when the earth is quite dried up--the hot-blooded animals, whose circulation is rapid, remain completely overpowered with the heat in their retreats all day, either stretched panting on the leaves, or lurking in the shade of some rock; but the moment the sun, in amber clouds, sinks below the horizon, and twilight brings in his train the dark hours of night, and its humid vapours, the beasts of the forest are again in movement, again their ravenous appetite returns, and they lose no time in ranging the woods, seeking how and where they may gratify it. Then it is these large _Mares_, silent as a woman that listens at a keyhole--silent as a catacomb, is all at once endowed with life,--is filled with strange noises, like an aviary, and becomes, as night falls, a common centre to which the hungry and thirsty cavalcade direct their steps. The first arrivals are hundreds of birds, of every size and colour, who come to gossip, to bathe, to drink, and splash the water with their wings. Next come troops of hares and rabbits, who come to nibble the fresh grass that grows there in great luxuriance. 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.