When a deer has merely been eviscerated and is hung up to be skinned, and cut up at a more convenient season, prop open the abdominal cavity with a stick, so that it may dry out quickly. If the weather is warm enough at any hour of the day for flies to come out, keep a smudge going under the carcass.* It takes flies but a few minutes to raise Ned with venison. If blows are discovered on the meat, remove them, looking especially at all folds and nicks in the meat, and around the bones, for the blows work into such places very quickly. So long as they have not bored into the flesh they do it no harm, A surer way is described by Doctor Breck:

* This means in ramp, where there is someone to look after it. Do not leave a smudge to take care of itself out in the woods: a wind springing up in your absence may cause it to set the forest afire.

" It is my practice to carry with me three or four yard's of cheesecloth (which has been dipped in alum-water at home), and this I wrap closely round whatever parts of the animal I especially wish to preserve. If a round of venison is thus done up, preferably with a needle and thread, it is safe from fly-blows, which are the bane of hunters. If unskinned, a head may also be kept clean in like manner. The cheesecloth takes up little more room than a napkin, and amply repays the small bulge in the coat-pocket."—The Way of the Woods.

I always carry cheesecloth on fishing trips, too.

It may be said here that even smoked bacon is not immune from blows, and it should not be hung up without a cheesecloth cover. The fly that blows meats is the common " blue-bottle." Its eggs hatch into " skippers" within twelve hours.