THE RACCOON 
O ONE has yet settled the ques- 
tion whether the crow, the fox, 
or the raccoon makes the most 
mischievous pet. Each does 
its best to earn the medal in 
this competition; but of the 
three, the raccoon certainly 
looks the most mischievous. 
The black patches around his 
eyes look like goggles; and there is a deep, specula- 
tive look in the eye itself, that matches the anxious 
look of the face. Probably his anxiety is occasioned 
from fear that he has not done all the naughty tricks 
possible in a given time. The raccoon is always full 
of curiosity, and will examine any unusual object 
with great thoroughness. This meddling habit has 
often led to his undoing; for one way of trapping 
coons is to suspend above a trap a bit of bright tin; 
this so fixes the attention of these wily animals that 
they lose all caution and walk into the trap. 
The wild raccoon likes to live near water, because of 
its partiality for frogs, fish, oysters and other water 
animals. It also has a strange habit of washing its 
meat before eating. Thus it is, we often find raccoon 
tracks in the soft mud on the margins of pond or 
stream; these tracks are unmistakable, for the 
raccoon is what the scientists call a plantigrade, i. e., 
it walks on its entire foot instead of its toes, and its 
tracks look as if they were made by the hand or foot 
of a fairy. 
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