TRACKING ON BARE GROUND. 149 



amount of still-hunting you should by all means 

 practice it. And to begin this it is not necessary to 

 wait until the necessity arises. The first steps in the 

 art can be learned by practicing on your own trail. 



To do this go first upon ground that is soft enough 

 to take the impression of your foot. After walking a 

 hundred yards or so, circle around backward and 

 look for your trail. Then follow it, not with your 

 eyes upon any one track and then shifting to the 

 next one, but with eyes fixed as far away, as possible, 

 and with a gaze that takes in at once twenty-five or 

 thirty feet of the trail. After trying this for a few 

 days you will discover a marked difference in the 

 speed with which your eye catches each footprint, in 

 the distance at which it will catch them, and in the 

 number it will take in at once. On each day look 

 also for the tracks of the preceding day and days before 

 that, until you can no longer find them ; and note care- 

 fully the difference in the appearance of freshness, 

 a very important point. When it becomes easy to 

 find and follow your trail on such ground, change to 

 more difficult ground. Unless you live in a large city 

 all this kind of practice may easily be had near home. 

 A cow or horse track, off the road, is also good to 

 practice on. But remember to always try and see as 

 far ahead as possible on the trail. Tracking does not, 

 as some might suppose, consist in picking out each 

 step by a separate search, but in a comprehensive 

 view of the whole ground for several yards ahead. 

 Sometimes it is necessary to grope one's way from 

 step to step like a child in its primer, as where the 

 trail gets very faint or turns much; but generally the 

 experienced tracker reads several yards of the trail at 

 a glance, just as the fluent reader does words in a 



