Footprints 189 



by a bird or mammal. Still, tracks are a 

 safe guide in the long run, and, whether 

 our opinion as to them be correct or not, the 

 rambler finds something worth seeing, and 

 he goes on anything but a wild-goose chase 

 who sometimes finds himself mistaken. It 

 is well to check our confidence occasionally 

 and realize the limits of our power. 



Opportunity afforded while in camp, and 

 I made a short study of footprints. With 

 a field-glass I noted many birds, and then 

 going to the spot, examined the impressions 

 their feet had made. A night-heron did not 

 come down flatly upon its feet with outspread 

 toes, and so the tracks were quite different 

 from the impressions made when the bird 

 walked. Crows, I noticed, both hopped 

 and walked, and the marks were very dif- 

 ferent, the former being broad and ill-defined 

 in comparison with the traces of the same 

 bird's stately tread. Had the bird not been 

 seen, any one would have supposed two creat- 

 ures had been keeping close company, or that 

 some one individual had passed by in the 

 very path of another. The purple grakle 

 and red-winged blackbird made tracks too 

 much alike to be distinguished, yet these 



