TRACKS IN THE SAND 43 



these times, especially if the sand be soft, the 

 marks of the dew-claws, rudiments of hoofs on the 

 second and hfth toes, reach the sand and leave 

 their imprint, a reminder of the ancestral four- 

 toed condition. 



The tracks of fawns show that they commonly 

 run beside the doe but in a less sedate manner, 

 taking side trips and returning, and occasionally, 

 in the exuberance of their childish spirits, bound- 

 ing up into the air, perhaps sideways, and coming 

 down with all four feet near together. 



The study of the tracks of these creatures is 

 interesting, even if one does not catch a sight of 

 the makers. One July day I noticed the fresh 

 tracks of a large stag near the lighthouse, and 

 picked them up again two miles or more down the 

 beach where the animal was trotting from the 

 dunes towards the water. It was then nine 

 o'clock in the morning and dead low tide. The 

 tracks showed that the stag stopped at about six 

 o'clock at the edge of the half ebbed tide. Turn- 

 ing about he forded a little inlet, dry at low tide, 

 but at six o'clock full of water as shown by the 

 absence of tracks in its bed, and by the splash 



