1528 



AMERICAN FORESTRY 



COMING AND GOING 



The trail of a deer mouse in soft snow. The separate marks of front 

 and hind feet cannot be distinguished but the mark of the long tail 

 behind each track is clearly denned. Which way did he go? 



skin turned neatly inside out. He seems equally at home 

 in the woods and the fields and on this day we found 

 his trails almost as frequent as the tracks of the mice, 

 perhaps because the mice do a good deal of their running 

 on the surface of the ground beneath the snow. 



Especially is this true of the fat little meadow mice that 

 seem to have difficulty in jumping in the soft snow and 

 prefer to burrow through it. In places where the snow 

 was hard, however, their tracks were plentiful enough, 



looking like miniature squirrel tracks, the short tail 

 only occasionally striking so as to leave a mark. So many 

 enemies have the meadow mice that it is little wonder that 

 they scarcely dare show themselves above the snow. The 

 hawks by day, and the owls, racoons, weasels, skunks, 

 foxes and cats by night combine to keep him ever on the 

 alert. At this particular time, however, he had little to fear 

 from coons or skunks, for the weather had been cold 

 for weeks and they were snugly asleep enjoying their 

 partial hibernation and waiting for a few warm days and 

 nights to awaken them. 



We noted, however, that the weasels were out for 

 we followed the paired tracks of one back and forth 

 along the edge of the woods, observing how it had loped 

 over the surface and burrowed beneath by turns. Never 

 a brush heap or a stone pile was passed by the inquisitive 

 beast without a thorough exploration of all its nooks 

 and crannies for some shivering mouselet. We knew 

 that he was not entirely nocturnal in his explorations 

 and as the tracks were still fresh we kept our eyes ahead 

 for the slightest motion. During the winter the weasel's 



THE DEER MOUSE 



His large eyes, big ears, rich yellow-brown upper parts and snowy 

 white underparts make him a most attractive little beast He is 

 also called the white-footed mouse. 



HAS MANY ENEMIES 



The hawks by day and the owls, cats, weasels, foxes, racoons and 

 skunks by night combine to keep the little meadow mouse ever on 

 the alert. 



coat is pure white except for the black tip to its tail and 

 one has to look closely to see this or his beady black eyes 

 and muzzle when everything is white. At last the tracks 

 led to a pile of logs and did not lead away so we knew 

 that he was' somewhere beneath. Instead of turning over 

 the logs to hunt for him we sat down near one end of 

 the pile knowing that if his natural inquisitiveness did 

 not bring him out, a few "squeaks" would. Somewhere 

 in the distance a flock of crows were mobbing a sleepy 

 owl and a couple of blue jays screeched their displeasure 

 over the presence of a squirrel in their favorite tree. But 

 close at hand all was silent save for the lisping peeps of 

 a few chickadees hunting about the tips of the hemlock 

 branches. We had not long to wait. A feeling gradually 

 came over us that we were being watched and sure 

 enough, a slight movement of something drew our atten- 



