are spending the winter. It may possibly be 

 that they are his own family, who generally 

 have a den of their own, and whom he visits 

 to see if all is well. Sometimes from this 

 den another coon goes out with him, and 

 their tracks wander for miles together ; more 

 often he comes out alone, and you follow to 

 where he has visited other coons, or gone 

 to sleep in another tree of his own, or swung 

 round in a vast circle to the tree from which 

 he started, where he goes to sleep again till 

 called out for another season by the spring 

 sun and the chickadee's love notes. 



It may be that all this is a bit of pure 

 sociability on Mooweesuk's part, for it is 

 certainly not his season of love-making or 

 of finding a mate. Often, as I have said, 

 three or four cubs \vill sleep the winter out in 

 the same den; but again you may find two 

 or three old coons in the same tree. Unlike 

 many other animals with regard to their 

 dens, the law of hospitality is strong with 

 the coon, and a solitary old fellow that pre- 

 fers to den by himself will never refuse to 

 share his winter house with other coons that 



43 



