The _Mares_ on the borders of which these scenes of strife and carnage take place, are found by the morning sun surrounded by a crimson circle, and all the horrid details of the battle-field--proof that the weak have been slaughtered and overcome by the strong; a humiliating sight! for the desolation created by the bad passions of man is far too like it. Sometimes these _Mares_ are from two to three hundred feet in circumference, and these may be truly termed the diamonds of the forest. The _Mare_ No. 1., fed by small but always flowing springs, is full, when others are dried up, and is frequented by troops of animals, savage and meek, which thirst and heat drive there from all points of the compass. These _Mares_, but little known, few in number, much sought after--become, more especially at the period of the dog-days, very difficult to find. Considered always as the property of the first comer, the poacher, who is better acquainted than any other sportsman with the localities in which they are to be found, generally takes up his quarters near them late at night, and installs himself; sleeps there, sups there, and, determined not to leave it under any pretext, laughs in the face of the unfortunate wight who arrives after him, in the happy delusion that he has anticipated every one else. For it is a forest law, and acknowledged by all, that two sportsmen cannot, without disturbing one another, sit down at the same _Mare_; possession is in this not only nine but ten points of the law; and, if a mere lad, with a fowling-piece, happens to place himself first on its banks, no giant seven feet high would think of using his superior strength to expel him. Such is the law--such is the custom--to act in defiance of it would expose the culprit to the chance of receiving a charge of No. 3 in his jacket; and as each _Mare_ has its wooden hut, in successive summers, constructed by you, embellished by me, knocked in, cut about, injured by some one else, and repaired by all--the first man who puts the stock of his gun on the floor of the cabin becomes immediately and incontestibly the lucky proprietor of it for that night.