Raccoon 



Raccoons, like most other climbing animals, make frequent 

 use of the nests of hawks and crows to sleep in. At other times 

 they flatten themselves along the thick branch of a tree, their 

 gray fur harmonizing admirably with the colour of the bark, or 

 else they ascend to the tops of dense foliaged hemlocks and, 

 circling their fat bodies completely around the main stem, doze 

 away the time in comfort, supported by the numerous elastic 

 branches about them, quite invisible from the ground. If a 

 company of blue jays discover one in this position there is sure 

 to be a tremendous racket right away, their shrill voices jarring 

 the quiet of the tree-tops like an alarm clock set to awaken 

 the coon from his slumbers. 



Compared with most of our flesh-eating beasts, raccoons 

 are regular stay-at-homes. Of course there are exceptions, and 

 undoubtedly many of them are possessed of the wandering habit, 

 but I believe that the majority of them return regularly at day- 

 break, however they may have passed the night, whether peace- 

 fully gathering wild grapes or berries in the thickets, or robbing 

 the farmer's hen-roost. This last is perhaps about the worst form 

 of vice in which they ever indulge. A coon at large in a hen- 

 house appears to lose all discretion or fear of final retribution, 

 killing right and left while his enthusiasm lasts, and then gorging 

 himself on the results of his carnage. Unlike foxes, most of 

 whom carefully avoid a second visit to any farmyard that they 

 have once ravaged in this manner, a coon is likely to return the 

 following night to go on with his horrid work, and in most 

 instances is made to suffer the penalty of his misdeeds a charac- 

 teristic which would appear to indicate a certain dullness of 

 intellect, at least as compared with that of the fox; for as long 

 as the latter is able to quietly capture two or three chickens 

 each week under cover of the corn, he seems to realize that 

 there is but little danger of calling down the vengeance of the 

 farmer upon his head, and may keep up the game for months; 

 but wholesale robbery he knows to be a more serious matter, 

 and hardly to be repeated with safety. 



The track of the raccoon is easily recognized either in soft earth 

 or snow, the footprints being long with a narrow and quite 

 distinct heel, almost like that of the human foot. They are com- 

 monly in pairs a few inches apart, one a little in advance, the 

 pairs separated by a distance of something less than a yard. 



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