Burlington weekly free press. [volume] (Burlington, Vt.) 1866-1928, 1902-01-16
FOOTPRINTS.


A snowfall is leaf from nature s note
book. and upon it the creatures of the
fields and woods record their several do
ings AS the days go by, other records
are made over the face of the first on, S,
until at last comes tho thaw, and wipe
them all out. If we go for a walk while
the page lies white and fresh and before
the notes have become ilegible, we may
read what our wild neighbors have to say
for themselves.
A few days ago, new page lay upon
the earth. and ! went out to see what
notes were written. l started down a
little lane which had rail fence on
one side and stone wall on he other.
! had not gone far when | saw he track
Of some animal which had crossed my
path almost at right angles. Here was
the first note, and all that was nece ssary
was to translate it.
Il am a skunk it began. you can
see that by the deliberate manner in
which I put my feet down, and by the
marks of my prominent claws. BY the
position of my footprints you SCI the
direction | came from, and If you will
glance back along my track for fifty
yards, you will see the mouth of my den,
that old woodchuck burrow under the
wall. l am just starting out to look for
my breakfast
This was all l could make out from
where | stood, but, as a newspaper man
would say, there seemed to be a good
story In that, so I followed it up. The
trail led under the lowest rail of The
fence, across the corner of meadow and
into a hollow, we'll filled with the d
cayed stumps of old trees. Here the
notes of the skunk became ira nslatabla
again.
Some of these stumps should contain
wild mice, and I'm going to get some If
-, l. ,s tn-
you can see where l tried to scratch it -
but the one over here looks more promis s.
ing. Yes, there was a mouse in this one
there's the little burrow which ! Id
open with my claws, and l made a jump
for him as he popped out, and landed over
there where you see the prints Of my feet
all together. But as you see, there is not
a drop of blood nor a trace of hair, and
the tiny marks of the mouses paws
close to the hole under that stone, show
YOU very plainly how he escaped me.
Well. there's no use waiting around here.
I'll go up on the hillside Ha, ha. there
Is a grouse track leading under those
snow covered bushes; there's some thing
worth looking into. Sold again! The
tracks run out on the other SIDE; guess
I'll go down to the brook there and get a
drink anyhow
But the trail did not quite reach to the
brook 1t ended abruptly in 4 great blur
red depression in the snow. which was
dyed red in streaks and strewn with tufts
of fur Here was another note hut in a
different hand writing. Translated, it
ran:
Il am n great horned owl, and they
were my talons which put an end to the
skunk The fox and the raccoon may
turn up their noses at such food, hut
when I am hungry it's good enough for
me-
l followed the course of the brook until
It widened out into a broad stream, frozen
over, but open in pieces along the edges.
At one OF these openings the muskrat had
begun to write his notes. They explained
in a more or less lucid manner that The
writer had left his burrow under the bank
and had set out across the field in search
of food followed the trail made by the
small front paws and the large hind paws
with the line which the tail had made
running between them, to a gap in a stone
wall on the other side of which was a
cornfeld. Here the notes explained as
follows:
I'm awfully fond of corn, especially in
winter and III go to a good deal of
trouble to get it, But there's precious little
left FOR me; only a grain or two here and
there; and ! have to walk around a long
way TO find that. There was a kernel
here though. whore I've scraped the hole
in the snow and I've had to scratch the
hard earth a little too, for the corn W..
frozen very tight"
There were many other notes iotted
down along the river, some by birds,
others by squirrels, and one by a fox,
lust explaining that the writer's had been
over to get "A drink
Over near some rocks in a big wood. a
red squirrel had lett quite a lengthy
memorandum. 1t began:
II 1--we IN that LITTLE black hole in the
partly decayed butternut tree over there,
and I've been out taking exercise for
some time, as you can see by the double
rows OF footprints that extend from tree
to tree and from tree to tree, all over this
part OF the wood by and by I got
hungry, and remembered that last fan !
stored away a lot of hickory nuts under
that old log in the hollow, SO | Just
romned down there and got one. ! att II
over on the point of that rock; YOU can
see the little depression where / sat down.
You can also see the fine saw-dust- like
chiselinrs of the shell which | dropped
around me as | opened the nut. After that
] went down and got another one. but you
were coming over the rocks at that mo-
ment, so | ran up this tree and I'm here
yet"
looked up, and sure enough, there he
sat peering down at me with That injured
expression which a red squirrel knows so
well how to assume.
And thus I spent my morning, finding
everywhere fresh stories in the snow, and
endeavoring accurately to translate tn
records which / found written in the note
book of nature
ERNEST HAROLD BAYNES