The daily morning journal and courier., 1904-01-11
TELL-rALE FOOTPRINTS.

One morning last week, there lay upon the ground some three and a half inch es of newly-fallen snow. and went out early to to see what my wild neighbors had been doing during the night. The first record I saw had been made by some crows, which had been walking about in my neighbor's barnyard. Each footprint looked like the track of some pigmy snow-shoer, for the snow was too soft and too deep to show the individual toe marks. And l could see where each bird had stood at the mom- ent he flew away, for the inIprints of his primary feather showed where he had struck the snow with his wings at the first downward stroke. In the next l field there was brook, and from a | large hole near the bank. two musk rats had wandered to group of apple l trees though I could not discover that they had found anything to eat. The 1 tracks of the rats were not well de- fined, they did not show the wel-known bi-symmetrical trail, the footprints on either side separated by.a sharp line made by the tail. The little animal had ploughed through the snow, leaving deep, irregular furrows in the form of loops, the ends of which ran into the burrow near the bank Tn few places the muskrats had ploughed without dis turbing the surface, and at these points small tunnels had been made, and add ed interest to the appearance of the trail
 Not far away, the ice-bound brook joined an ice-bound lake and to this I came. Across the great field of snow which stretched before me there was just one trail-that of some large dog | which extended in a regular zig-zag l as far as the eye could follow it. The Footprints were seen alternately right and left an imaginary meridian line. 1 This arrangement showed that the ani- nal had not been bounding along, and as the footmarks were too far apart to have been made at walk the dog which made them must have been trav- cling at trot. A quarter of a mile further on the tracks were nearer to- 1 gether, showing where he had slowed down to a walk that he might better examine and sniff at an old boat which had been frozen in the ice Then I walked toward the shore, with the in- tention of entering the woods which skirted the lake on the west. Close to the bank, however, I came upon the trail of mink, so I followed that. It did not show the individual footprints, which may be seen after a mink has walked on light snow, nor was 1t a gut ter, such as this animal makes when struggling on it's short legs through very deep snow. It consisted of a suc- cession of neat, squarish holes, occurr- ing at regular intervals. and had been made by the mink while leaping along with arched back, it's hind feet coming down close to the front ones, all four feet having had share in the making of each hole. The trail followed the shore closely for perhaps a quarter of a mile, deviating here and there. where the animal had stopped to sniff at a mouse burrow in the bank, and then it struck across the lake, in slightly wavy line. It led me up the opposite bank, through narrow strip of wood u. flake, where again it followed the shore. Then it turned into the woods again. showing the individual footprints where the little creature had walked through clumps of bushes because it was im- possible to proceed at leaping gait. Sud- denly it ran into another trail of a very different character. The latter had been made by rabbit, and the depres- sions in the snow were in groups of three, one small one behind, made by the fore paws coming down close to- gethef, and two large ones, one on either side, in front, made by the hind foot, which are thrown outside and be- yond the front feet when a rabbit is going at any speed. Thereafter the two trails took the same direction and often one of them covered the other. Over the rocks and between the trees they ran, toward pile of brush which had been left by the lumberlnen. And here the rabbit tracks ended, and be- yond the brush pile, for leap or two the tracks of the mink were bloody. The spaces between them were short CT, too, for here the animal had been travelling on a full stomach.
 On my way home I saw the tracks of red squirrel, which were similar to the rabbits, but smaller, extending