The Birmingham age-herald., 1912-10-25

From the Louisville Courier-Journal
 NEVERAL Frankfort sportsmen, ac- cording to the State Journal, are Io upon their way to High Bridge upon a. houseboat carrying 1000 live min
 nows and other bait and two good coon
 dogs. They will hunt 'coons in the hills about High Bridge.
 Good coon dogs are rare sporting anl- mals nowadays They never were as com mon as good bird dogs, but when there was more virgin forest in Kentucky than there now is, and when the wages of farm
 laborers were less than they now are, there was a fair profit in coon hunting
 as well as fair sport, and nearly every
 round log or hewn log cabin boasted a | coon dog. When "six bits a day was the pay of a strapping farm laborer, even in corn shucking time, and coon peits were worth a half dollar, really good coon day could earn more for the man who followed him than could be earned
 in the field from sunup to sundoWn 'Coons were plentiful in the woods A man with a first rate dog-usually a eur which knew better than to waste time jumping up rabbits, and whose nose was
 set for the trailing of "varmints"-and
 with an ax to chop down trees and a shotgun or cap and ball rifle to use as
 occasion offered was pretty sure to come home with more than ''six bits' worth Of coon fur before midnight.
 Dogs trail 'coons more readily after a light rain has fallen. When it is damp in the woods and the various forest scents mingle and form a perfume that is grate- full to the olfactories of human beings the raccoon upon his way from his home in
 a. hollow tree to his fishing in the shallows
 of the creek leaves more of the perfume of nis pads" upon the fallen leaves than is left upon a dry night. And If the clouds have blown and there is full moon the hunter is not put to the trouble of get ting the coon out of the tree by climb ing the tree or by chopping it down, a method common enough when timber was looked upon as ineXhaustible and when axmen were more expert than they now
 are and did not look upon ax work as in- tolerabso labor. Upon moonlight nights the coon was usually discoverable to the hunter somewhere in the crotch" of the | tree or 1dllflltu oul bpVh ehS VT -
 a large limb trying to hide. All that was necessary was to walk about the tree
 keeping it's branches silhouetted agalnst
 the moon until the fur of the coon was
 seen. The coarse hair that grows longer than the soft short fur upon the coon
 back showed readily against the mooh'
 and sometimes the end of a tail left hang
 ing carelessly over a limb would reveal
 tbe whereabouts of the animal whose
 nresence was denoted by the refusal of ,ha dop to leave the butt of the tree.
 pel.s are not at their best until the
 heavy frosts have made. the raccoon put
 on his winter coat. By that time the
 leaves have fallen, leaving the. branches
 hare against the sky. A man accustomed to shooting squirrels from the topmost lbranches of "shel bark hiclsories with
 a long rifle could pot a coon by moon-
 light by getting his fur against the face
 of the moon, and hunters who were pri-
 marily interested in getting belts saved | time by doing so. A wild turkey roost | was sometimes found by a hunter while circlng a tree looking for coon.
 Upon cloudy nights. or in the dark VI
 carry a gun of any kind. The dog and
 the ax constituted full equipment. The coon treed, there was nothing to do but icut down the tree or climb it. Cutting the tree had one great disadvantage. An
 eager dog would sometimes fail to allow for the spread of the branches and get killed by the falling tree. If the dogs I were held back there was always the possibility that the coon would get up an- other tree before he could be caught. And old and experienced animals sometimes managed to jump from the branches of a falling tree to a standing one, leaving no trail and sometimes escaping the eyes of the dogs Climbing the tree had also one great disadvantage. The supposed coon sometimes turned out to be wild cat It is safe enough to straddle limt and make a coon run out to the end of it. where he may be shaken into the jaws of the dogs below. But wildcat is in clined to dispute possession of the limb and an enraged wildcat encountered ir the dark by bare handed human op- ponent is somewhat more terrible than
 sn army With banners. Because of it'