Wheeling Sunday register. [volume] (Wheeling, W. Va.) 1882-1934, 1888-07-22
HUNTING THE COON.
GLORIOUS SPORT WHICH HAS BEEN SADLY
NEGLECTED.
Scsntlsss Trail Of the Prey Followed by the WHY
PursuG-The Sill and the Baying Dogs.
and Their Methods Of Chasing.

ScentlsSs Tral Of the Frey FOLLOWED oy me WHY
PusuG-The Sill and the Baying Dogs.
and Their Methods Of Chasing.
Ed Not In Ctereland Leader.
Among those species of animals which
may be said to have become extinct is the
coon dog ofour fathers. He was Of no
particular strain of blood, but he united
the keen scent of the deer hound with the
intelligence Of ths shepherd dog. and the
tenacity of the bulldog with the stealth of
the panther. With less accomplishments
than these he might have been good on q
fox or deer trail; the lowing herd would
probably have been safe in his keeping;
he might have been able to hold his W
in a fight, or have stood an excel
lent chance of succeeding as q sheep steal
or, but he couldn't have been q coon
dog. For your coon is q cute and tricky
customer, and crammed with patience.
Moreover, he leaves behind him the cold
est, most scentless trail OF animals that
run. He leads You through dangled
swsmps and deep stony hollows. He
crosses and recrosses s~wift-running streams.
He frisks along the top Of rough stone
walls as silent and swift as a shadow. He
stops within a dozen feet of some conven-
lent we'll, clears the intervening space at a
bound, strikes the tree, and glides up to
the longest limb, uns to its extremity,
and leaps q dozen feet beyond it to the
ground again, breaking his trail abruptly
on one side and beginning it as confusingly
abrupt on the other. He inyepts tactics
for emergencies, and brings to every con-
sideration Of his welfare and that of his
family a large and uniformly level head.
He plays his cards well, and the dog that
would beat him must needs hold both
bowers and the ace, with strong cards to
back them. These the coon dog of our
fathers always had.
There were, as / remember, 25.years ago
the still-huuting coon dog and the coon
dog who let you know at every step that
he was getting there. There was mixed
up with the methods Of the still-hunter
an element of greater certainty that you
would get your coon than there was with
the more melodious system Of the dog that
mouthed his presence in the shsiowy
chase; but the style of the latter put more
tingle in your blood and buoyed you up
with sweeter expectancy. There was
something weird and uncanny in follow
ing the still dog in all the windings and
turnings of the gloomy woods at night.
He crept among tangled brush and deep
~rsvines, climbed abrupt knobs, and work
ed his serpentine way down into deep
hollows-turning, doubling, shifting,
crossing and recrossing his track, like the
lsbyrinthian tracing OF a ships cspricious
c~ourse-silent as the night around him,
stealthy as a twilight shadow.
His very silence brought him to the
prize. As the trail of the unsuspecting
coon became warmer, the noiseless pursuer
grew still more cautious until, the game in
sight, he rushed upon it like an avalanche,
and the pent up music of the soul went
forth in one fearful howl of triumph, and
tbs surprised and frightened coon knew
that his nights were numbered.
But it vas different with the dog that
gave tongue as he hunted. He made music
In the night-not the silvery treble of the
%foxhound, floating down from the hills on
the frosty air, and drawn out in sweet
cadenza, by every willing echo, nor yet the
mellow bass of the deer hound swelling
over the ridges, clear and ~far-soundipg rs
a bugle note, but a pleasant, though STAG
cato, song of his own, bali bark, half bay
"A cheerful mingling of melody with bust
ness.
The baying coon dog always has a better
nose than his noiseless brother, and he
needed to have. The coon never knew
when the silent dog was on his track, and
consequently did not bring TO his protec.
tion the many wiles aud stratagems that
he at once resorted to when the cry of the
other dog rang out on the trail. 1t was
then that he mar9lvrsd to throw false
scents, and the brook and the bramble, the
hill and the holl wv were all impressed in
his service in his race for life, and it was
then that the baying coon dog of n faith
ers came out strong; step by step he I'M
rsvelled the tangled and we'll hidden scent,
constantly sounding his wild challenge to
the coon 10 do his best, while the hunted
animals repertory Of wiles was exhausted,
and, accepting the inevitable, he
climbed a tree. When the dog found he
Ldu DIUukul thC COOu W uio hl5
bay changed to a loud, quick bark, the sig
nal to the hunter following on behind that
the coon was freed.
But with the wal coon hunting went ont
Of fashion rs a pastime, and the race Of
training coon dogs gradually became ex-
trct. There are cool dogs and coon
hunters yet, but they are not the coon dogs
of our fathers, and the hunters are gen
orally shlftless, hand-to-mouth members Of
the community, who are even ashamed to
have it known that they go coon hunting
Yet % years ago the colonel and the squire,
the dominic and the deacon were nightly
hounders of this willy game, and WED each
with the other in being known "a the best
coon hunter in their respective bailiwicks.
Once in those rare days new preacher was
settled over a backwoods district in Pike
county. He was not wise in the ways of the
woods. Early in his first autumn OIL the
charge he began the usual protrscted meet
ing season. By and by he noticed that on
mOoplit and starlit nights his congregation
was made up Of women only. Finally he
asked the reason of this. A sister rose and
said:
"It's cause the coonin's better'n tits in
the dark o. the moon, dominic. Soon as
the moon darks, the men'll jine ye."
Sure enough when the moon darked"
the brethren were all in their places in the
Westinghouse joining heartily in the pro-
ceeding. The pastor demonstrated with
them publicly.
"while you have been idling after
coons," said he, there may have been
those in the district who do not hunt coons
and whom you might have led here and
saved their souls"
Deacon Brown rose up in meeting and
said:
Dominic, eff thez any one in this dees-
tric' ez don't hunt coons, his soul hain't
with savin'."
There was sport in the coon hunt for our
! fathers, and in q great measure q mans
importance in some communities was
Judged by the number Of coon skins he
could nail to his barn door after q hunt.
Why the coon has come to be despised
by sportsmen in these later days is one Of
those things about which the remark has
once or twice been made that no fellow
can find ont. He is as cunning as the fox