THE LIFE OF MAMMALS 
badger,” as the observant Smith said; but this is an accidental 
likeness soon forgotten, for the flexible nose, flat-soled feet, 
arched hindquarters, and long-ringed tail quickly impress 
themselves upon a new acquaintance. It is therefore its ways 
rather than appearance which declare him a miniature Bruin, 
—“that brief summary of a bear,” as John Burroughs says. 
The home of a raccoon family is usually in a hollow high 
up in a tree, where a limb has been wrenched off by the wind, 
or water has rotted a hole 
large enough for their ac- 
commodation; but now and 
then a place is selected 
nearer the ground, as a 
hollow log; and Kennicott 
tells us that on the prairies 
it will shelter itself in a 
hole dug by some badger 
or skunk. Properly, how- 
ever, the coon is a woods- 
man, and rather prefers 
swamps. In its chosen re- 
treat are produced in early 
spring five or six young 
ones that by and by grow 
large enough to leave home and follow the parents in their noctur- 
nal vagabondage, staying with them a year or so until they found 
families of their own. Hence in summer and early autumn, when 
coons wander a good deal, they are most often met with in 
family parties. It is rare to sce a wild coon out of doors in 
daylight, however, for then he is usually rolled up asleep in 
some lofty crotch, where he dozes in the sunshine, rocked by 
the breeze. As winter comes on they restrict their roving, 
seek a permanent abode, and in the coldest weather hibernate 
completely. This, however, is only in the North, and even 
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