CROW TRACKS 



Tracks in the Snow 



By EDMUND J. SAWYER, Black River, N. Y. 



Illustrated by the authoi 



A FTER all that has been published about animal signs, particu- 

 /-% larly tracks in the snow, tracks little and tracks big, tracks more 

 or less instructive and interesting, tracks exceedingly common- 

 place and non-commital, tracks profoundly unsuggestive — there is danger 

 of losing sight of the significance of these things, and regarding them as 

 chiefly interesting in and for themselves. 



It is well to felicitate oneself over Crow-tracks, to 'rave' over a flock 

 of Snow-bunting foot-prints, and to dance for joy on discovering a fresh 

 Grouse trail. It is also well, and possibly more sane, to reflect quite as 

 often on one's ill-luck for having come along too late after all. When you 

 go to see a fine equipage, how provoking to find it has passed by and left 

 you only its wheel-tracks in the roadway. 



On every visit to the woods, that is almost daily, I find one or more 

 trails in the snow or mud, a bit of fur or a tuft of feathers on a stump, 

 perhaps the remains of some midnight feast, a preening- or a dusting-place, 

 an interesting wing-feather, a nest abandoned without evident cause — 

 according to the season and place; some evidence of things not seen; one 

 more hint that I know comparatively little of what goes on in the teeming 

 woods. 



You may walk miles on a winter night in picked territory; you may 

 go out on your back porch, being near the woods, and look and listen tiU 

 your ears begin to freeze, for night after night; and you will hear, or fancy 



(12) 



