Boy Scouts Handbook Part 46

Another simple evidence of this is the well known fact that no two human beings have the same thumb mark; all living creatures have corresponding peculiarities, and all use these parts in making the trail.

_Second_.--The trail was begun at the birthplace of that creature and ends only at its death place; it may be recorded in visible track or perceptible odor. It may last but a few {191} hours, and may be too faint even for an expert with present equipment to follow, but evidently the trail is made, wherever the creature journeys afoot.

_Third_.--It varies with every important change of impulse, action, or emotion.

_Fourth_--When we find a trail we may rest a.s.sured that, if living, the creature that made it is at the other end. And if one can follow, it is only a question of time before coming up with that animal. And be sure of its direction before setting out; many a novice has lost much time by going backward on the trail.

_Fifth_.--In studying trails one must always keep probabilities in mind.

Sometimes one kind of track looks much like another; then the question is, "Which is the likeliest in this place."

If I saw a jaguar track in India, I should know it was made by a leopard. If I found a leopard in Colorado, I should be sure I had found the mark of a cougar or mountain lion. A wolf track on Broadway would doubtless be the doing of a very large dog, and a St. Bernard's footmark in the Rockies, twenty miles from anywhere, would most likely turn out to be the happen-so imprint of a gray wolf's foot. To be sure of the marks, then, one should know all the animals that belong to the neighborhood.

These facts are well known to every hunter. Most savages are hunters, and one of the early lessons of the Indian boy is to know the tracks of the different beasts about him. These are the letters of the old, old writing.

A First Try

Let us go forth into the woods in one of the North-eastern states when there is a good tracking snow, and learn a few of these letters of the wood alphabet.

Two at least are sure to be seen--the track of the blarina and of the deer mouse. They are shown on the same scale in Figs. 1 and 2, page 198.

In Fig. 3 is the track of the meadow mouse. This is not unlike that of the blarina, because it walks, being a ground animal, while the deer mouse more often bounds. The delicate lace traceries of the masked shrew, shown in Fig. 4, are almost invisible unless the sun be low; they are difficult to draw, and impossible to photograph or cast satisfactorily but the sketch gives enough to recognize them by.

The meadow mouse belongs to the rank gra.s.s in the lowland {192} near the brook, and pa.s.sing it toward the open, running, water we may see the curious track of the muskrat; its five-toed hind foot, its four-toed front foot, and its long keeled tail, are plainly on record.

When he goes slowly the tail mark is nearly straight; when he goes fast it is wavy in proportion to his pace. Page 193.

The muskrat is a valiant beast; he never dies without fighting to the last, but he is in dread of another brookland creature whose trail is here--the mink. Individual tracks of this animal are shown in No. 1, page 161. Here he was bounding; the forefeet are together, the hindfeet track ahead, and tail mark shows, and but four toes in each track, though the creature has five on each foot. He is a dreaded enemy of poor Molly Cottontail, and more than once I have seen the records of his relentless pursuit. One of these fits in admirably as an ill.u.s.tration of our present study.

A Story of the Trail

It was in the winter of 1900, I was standing with my brother, a business man, on Goat Island, Niagara, when he remarked, "How is it?

You and I have been in the same parts of America for twenty years, yet I never see any of the curious sides of animal life that you are continually coming across."

"Largely because you do not study tracks," was the reply. "Look at your feet now. There is a whole history to be read."

"I see some marks," he replied, "that might have been made by some animal." "That is the track of a cottontail," was the answer. "Now, let us read the chapter of his life. See, he went in a general straight course as though making some well-known haunt, his easy pace, with eight or ten inches between each set of tracks, shows unalarm.

But see here, joining on, is something else."

"So there is. Another cottontail."

"Not at all, this new track is smaller, the forefeet are more or less paired, showing that the creature can climb a tree; there is a suggestion of toe pads and there is a mark telling evidently of a long tail; these things combined with the size and the place identify it clearly. This is the trail of a mink. See! he has also found the rabbit track, and finding it fresh, he followed it. His bounds are lengthened now, but the rabbit's are not, showing that the latter was unconscious of the pursuit."

After one hundred yards the double trail led us to a great pile of wood, and into this both went. Having followed his {193} game into dense cover, the trailer's first business was to make sure that it did not go out the other side. We went carefully around the pile; there were no tracks leading out.

"Now," I said, "if you will take the trouble to move that wood pile you will find in it the remains of the rabbit half devoured and the mink himself. At this moment he is no doubt curled up asleep."

As the pile was large and the conclusion more or less self-evident, my brother was content to accept my reading of the episode.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Tracks.]

Dog tracks, front and back (1/2 life-size)

Cat tracks, front and bad (1/2 life-size)

Uppermost, well-developed human foot

Middle, a foot always cramped by boots

Bottom, a bare foot, never in boots

Muskrat tracks, (1/3 life-size)

What About Winter Sleepers

Although so much is to be read in the wintry white, we cannot now make a full account of all the woodland four-foots, for there are some kinds that do not come out on the snow; they sleep more or less all winter.

{194}

Thus, one rarely sees the track of a chipmunk or woodchuck in truly wintry weather; and never, so far as I know, have the trails of jumping mouse or mud turtle been seen in the snow. These we can track only in the mud or dust. Such trails cannot be followed as far as those in the snow, simply because the mud and dust do not cover the whole country, but they are usually as clear and in some respects more easy of record.

How to Make Pictures of Tracks

It is a most fascinating amus.e.m.e.nt to learn some creature's way of life by following its fresh track for hours in good snow. I never miss such a chance. If I cannot find a fresh track, I take a stale one, knowing that, theoretically, it is fresher at every step, and from practical experience that it always brings one to some track that is fresh.

How often I have wished for a perfect means of transferring these wild life tales to paper or otherwise making a permanent collection. My earliest attempts were in free-hand drawing, which answers, but has this great disadvantage--it is a translation, a record discolored by an intervening personality, and the value of the result is likely to be limited by one's own knowledge at the time.

Casting in plaster was another means attempted; but not one track in ten thousand is fit to cast. Nearly all are blemished and imperfect in some way, and the most abundant--those in snow--cannot be cast at all.

Then I tried spreading plastic wax where the beasts would walk on it, in pathways or before dens. How they did scoff! The simplest ground squirrel knew too much to venture on my waxen snare; around 'it, or if hemmed in, over it, with a mighty bound they went; but never a track did I so secure.

Photography naturally suggested itself, but the difficulties proved as great as unexpected, almost as great as in casting. Not one track in one thousand is fit to photograph; the essential details are almost always left out. You must have open sunlight, and even when the weather is perfect there are practically but two times each day when it is possible--in mid-morning and mid-afternoon, when the sun is high enough for clear photographs and low enough to cast a shadow in the faint track.

The c.o.o.n that Showed Me How

Then a new method was suggested in an unexpected way. A friend of mine had a pet c.o.o.n which he kept in a cage in his bachelor quarters up town. One day, during my friend's {195} absence the c.o.o.n got loose and set about a series of long-deferred exploring expeditions, beginning with the bachelor's bedroom. The first promising object was a writing desk. Mounting by a chair the c.o.o.n examined several uninteresting books and papers, and then noticed higher up a large stone bottle. He had several times found pleasurable stuff in bottles, so he went for it. The cork was lightly in and easily disposed of, but the smell was far from inviting, for it was merely a quart of ink. Determined to leave no stone unturned, however, the c.o.o.n upset the ink to taste and try. Alas! it tasted even worse than it smelt; it was an utter failure as a beverage.

And the c.o.o.n, pushing it contemptuously away, turned to a pile of fine hand-made, deckle-edge, heraldry note-paper--the pride of my friend's heart--and when he raised his inky little paws there were left on the paper some beautiful black prints. This was a new idea: the c.o.o.n tried it again and again. But the ink held out longer than the paper, so that the fur-clad painter worked over sundry books, and the adjoining walls, while the ink, dribbling over everything, formed a great pool below the desk. Something attracted the artist's attention, causing him to jump down. He landed in the pool of ink, making it splash in all directions; some of the black splotches reached the white counterpane of the bachelor's bed. Another happy idea: the c.o.o.n now leaped on the bed, racing around as long as the ink on his feet gave results. As he paused to rest, or perhaps to see if any places had been neglected, the door opened, and in came the landlady. The scene which followed was too painful for description; no one present enjoyed it. My friend was sent for to come and take his c.o.o.n out of there forever. He came and took him away, I suppose "forever." He had only one other place for him--his office and there it was I made the animal's acquaintance and heard of his exploit--an ink and paper, if not a literary affair.

This gave me the hint at the Zoo I needed, a plan to make an authentic record of animal tracks. Armed with printer's ink and paper rolls I set about gathering a dictionary collection of imprints.

After many failures and much experiment, better methods were devised.

A number of improvements were made by my wife; one was the subst.i.tution of black paint for printer's ink, as the latter dries too quickly; another was the padding of the paper, which should be light and soft for very light animals, and stronger and harder for the heavy. Printing from a mouse, for example, is much like printing a delicate {196} etching; ink, paper, dampness, etc., must be exactly right, and furthermore, you have this handicap--you cannot regulate the pressure. This is, of course, strictly a Zoo method. All attempts to secure black prints from wild animals have been total failures. The paper, the smell of paint, etc., are enough to keep the wild things away.