' COON-HUNTING IN" SOUTHERN ILLINOIS. 511 



night, and he will invariably trail the 'Coon to where it has 

 holed-up for the day. This, with my hounds, I have 

 repeatedly done; and I have seen it done by hounds owned 

 by others. 



During the winter of 1864-65, I saw a Fox-hound bitch, 

 owned by Mr. Henry Fry, trail and tree Raccoons at mid- 

 day which had been running the previous night, there 

 being a ten-inch snow that had been on the ground for 

 some time. The warm sun during the day had softened 

 the snow, and at night it had frozen hard enough to form 

 a crust sufficiently firm to bear up even a dog; and it 

 being the rutting : season, the 'Coons were out on their 

 amorous trips every night, racing around, when the crust 

 would bear them. 



On the following day, Fry and myself would take our 

 axes and his hound into the woods, and just so soon as the 

 warm rays of the sun would soften the snow-crust, making 

 it damp, she would, on coming to where a 'Coon had been, 

 take its trail and follow it to the tree up which it had gone, 

 and in an upper hollow of which it was then ensconced. 

 We would then cut the tree down and get the 'Coon. 

 Sometimes we would get two out of the same hollow. It 

 is not the "cold foot" of the 'Coon, but the time of 

 the night or the day in which it has left its trail, that 

 hinders or aids the dog in following it. This is why the 

 best nights for ' Coon-hunting are when the wind is from 

 the south. 



"Hark! Listen! What noise is that, away off in the 

 Old Town woods % ' ' was asked, by a recent arrival in this 

 region', of a resident friend with whom he was riding along 

 the road skirting the above-named woods, one dark night 

 in November. They halted their horses, when ' ' Boo-woo- 

 ouh ! " "Youck! youck ! youck ! " " Whoop-ee ! " came 

 floating to their ears, on the gentle southwest breeze, from 

 the dark and lonely forest. 



"Oh," answers his companion, " that's Fry and Arrow- 

 smith, out with their hounds after a 'Coon." 



