THE ERMINE 



those of other animals even by sportsmen of long 

 standing. One will mistake its trail for that of 

 the deer, another for that of a coyote, fox or 

 lynx, and still another, under favorable tracking 

 conditions, will confound its track with that of 

 the mink or ferret. In loose snow, when its trail 

 is likely to be mistaken for that of any of those 

 mentioned, it should be considered that the jumps 

 of the ermine constantly vary in length, while the 

 individual tracks made by the other named ani- 

 mals usually stand a regular distance apart. 



If the tracker follows an ermine's tracks which 

 he takes to be those of a mink, he should soon dis- 

 cover that the animal has entered every hole and 

 crevice along the trail, and that, judging by the 

 number of tracks around them, it found rock 

 piles, logs, brush heaps, etc., very interesting 

 and attractive. Now, marten or mink investi- 

 gate these things simply by passing over or 

 through them if they do not stop inside but 

 they never make regular paths around them as 

 the ermine does. Besides this, the ermine makes 

 a track hardly one-third as large as that of a 

 small marten. 



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