1024 Life-histories of Northern Animals 



white sand-bar, digs a hole and places them underneath the 

 heated surface. Quickly does the rogue dig up the elastic 

 ova, although ever so carefully covered, and appropriate them 

 to his own use, notwithstanding the efforts of the luckless 

 turtle to conceal them. 



"Sometimes by the margin of a pond, shrouded, or 

 crouched among tall reeds and grasses, Grimalkin-like, the 

 Raccoon lies still as death, waiting with patience for some ill- 

 fated duck that may come within his reach. No negro on a 

 plantation knows with more accuracy when the corn (maize) 

 is juicy and ready for the connoisseur in roasting ears, and he 

 does not require the aid of fire to improve its flavour, but at- 

 tacks it more voraciously than the Squirrel or the blackbird, 

 and is the last to quit the corn-field. * * * and although it gen- 

 erally visits the corn-fields at night, sometimes feeds on the 

 green corn during the day; we have seen it thus employed 

 during the heat of summer." 



Although the frog-pond and the corn-patch supply its 

 choicest foods, the Coon is not averse to a fat fowl. Some 

 individuals, indeed, seem to give way to the chicken habit 

 and riot in the hen-house night after night, killing first a fowl 

 and then a dozen at a time, until they fall into the power of 

 the barn-fowl's proper guardian. 



These, however, are abnormal individuals and are not to 

 be considered representative of the race's food-habits. It is 

 possible that, like most Lords of the Forest, its principal reve- 

 nue is derived from Mice, which are available when frogs and 

 fruit are not. 



Summing up its dietary — there is nothing in it, except 

 occasional thefts of corn and fowl, to blacklist this creature 

 on the farm-book; and these are so off^set by its usefulness as a 

 fur-bearer and beast of the chase, that most persons are glad 

 to hear that the Coon is rather increasing in America. 



WASHING The Latin name (lotor or tvasher) and German name 



{ff ash-bear) record a common habit of this animal. If near 

 the water, it rarely eats a morsel of food without washing it. 



