See quot. 1820.
1751. Several Salt Licks, or Ponds, formed by little Streams or Dreins of Water, clear but of a blueish Colour, & salt Taste the Traders and Indians boil their Meat in this Water, which (if proper Care be not taken) will sometimes make it too salt to eat.—C. Gist, ‘Journals’ (1893), 42. (N.E.D.)
1778. I never saw a Deer-lick. Hunters have told me that Deer frequent those Places for the Mud.—Maryland Journal, June 2.
1784. [Bullet’s Lick, Drenne’s-lick, the Big-bone, the Blue-licks, the Nob-lick:] to these the cattle repair, and reduce high hills rather to valleys than plains.—John Filson, ‘Kentucke,’ p. 32.
1789. [Added to Mr. Peale’s American Museum.] A Grinder of a non-descript Animal of the Western Country, found at the Big Bone Salt-Lick, and weighing Four Pounds.—Maryland Journal, Jan. 16.
1792. A salt spring is called a Lick, from the earth about them being furrowed out, in a most curious manner, by the buffalo and deer, which lick the earth on account of the saline particles with which it is impregnated.—G. Imlay, ‘Topographical Description,’ p. 43.
1800. Moses L. approached a lick, and took his stand in a convenient place to watch for game.—Mass. Spy, Sept. 17.
1807. [I am] acquainted with Mr. Ross, proprietor of the big bone lick.—Th. Jefferson to Dr. Wistar, Feb. 25.
1818. Col. Boon rode to a deer-lick, and seated himself behind a blind raised to conceal him from the game.—Mass. Spy, Sept. 23.
1820. We have Salt Licks, Blue Licks, Sulphur Licks, Big Bone Licks, and Licks of all sorts and sizes. The word is uncouth enough, but is very descriptive, and designates those spots which have been frequented by wild grazing animals, for the purpose of licking the saline particles with which the earth is impregnated. Some of these places have been licked for centuries, until vast cavities have been formed in the surface of the ground.—James Hall, ‘Letters from the West,’ p. 210 (Lond.). (Italics in the original.)
1823. I saw a deer-lick, at which I dismounted and took a lick. The earth thus licked and excavated by many tongues, is of the colour of fuller’s earth, not ill-flavoured, but a little salt and saponaceous, always attractive to the beasts of the forest.—W. Faux, ‘Memorable Days in America,’ p. 234 (Lond.).
1826. One of the peculiar features of the whole country west of the Mississippi, is these licks,—places where the wild and domestic cattle have beaten firm roads in all directions round them; and by continually licking for the salt, intermixed with the clay, which they swallow with the salt, there are often wide cavities, sometimes to a considerable depth, occasioned by the consumption by this continual licking.—T. Flint, ‘Recollections,’ p. 256.
1831. The deer that goes too often to the lick meets the hunter at last!—J. F. Cooper, ‘The Pathfinder,’ i. 182 (Lond., 1840).
1848. Hard-by … there was a salt spring, and the deer and buffalo were in the habit, as at other salt springs, of “licking” the surrounding earth…. They decided that every subdivision should have an angle or corner in the salt lick.… When we arrived at Mr. May’s deer lick, in the autumn of 1788, there were no inhabitants in that part of the country.—Dr. D. Drake, ‘Pioneer Life in Kentucky,’ pp. 13, 14, 41 (Cincinn., 1870).
1848. [in Kentucky, about 1774.] Elk were frequently seen browsing upon the hills near the licks.—Monette, ‘History of the Mississippi Valley,’ i. 364.
1868. Father sometimes took a shot; but whatever shooting he did was mostly at the “licks,” where the deer came to get salt which had been placed there for their enticement, the hunter being concealed in a clump of bushes hard-by.—Sol. Smith, ‘Autobiography,’ p. 10.
