152 



NATURAL HISTORY OF THE FARM 





caught on thorns, etc. Muskrat and deermouse drag their 

 tails, leaving a groove on the surface of the snow between the 

 double line of footprints. The crow drags his front toe, 

 leaving a narrow trailing mark between his sole-prints. 

 Tracks are the signs chiefly used by the woodsman, and next 

 to tracks, are the evidences of feeding. Where the quadruped 



halts, there are apt to be 

 found, gnawings of bark, or 

 digging of roots, or descents 

 into burrows, or ascents for 

 scouting. The woodsman fol- 

 lows the animal's trail, and 

 from such signs as these reads 

 his successive doings like a 

 book. 



The trails that birds leave 

 are less continuous, because 

 betimes the birds betake them- 

 selves to the trackless air; but 

 in a wood where crows feed, one 



\L W may see such diverse things as 



the wastage from their pick- 

 ings of sumach and poison-ivy 

 berries, corncobs from ears 

 brought from a neighboring 



field, leaves of cabbage stolen from some neighborhood garbage 

 heap, and fragments of charcoal, which the crows have picked 

 from a burnt stump, perhaps to use as a condiment, perhaps 

 to improve their complexion. And the birds that work in 

 the treetops leave the evidences of their feeding scattered 

 about over the surface of the fresh snow beneath the trees. 

 Much pleasure may be derived from observing the winter 

 activities of wild birds near at hand if one will feed them. It 

 is easy to attract them to feeding places within view from 



FIG. 61. Bird tracks; p, crow; q, 

 ruffed grouse. 



