saltlick (saltlik)

A place resorted to by animals for the purpose of satisfying the natural craving for salt. The regions thus visited are those where saline springs rise to the surface, or have done so in former times. The miring of large animals, especially of the buffalo ( Bison american us ), about these licks has caused one of the most remarkable of them to be called the "Big Bone Lick." It is in Boone county, Kentucky. No, he must trust to chance and time; patient and wary, like a "painter" crouching for its spring, or a hunter waiting at a salt - lick for deer. Whyte Melville, White Rose, II. i.