166 WATCHED BY WILD ANIMALS 
was perhaps twenty feet across and about as 
high. The treetops were sticking out of it. 
On the top of the snowdrift a cotton-tail was 
feeding happily off the bark of the small limbs. 
This raised platform had given him a good op- 
portunity to get at a convenient food supply. 
He was making the most of this. At the bot- 
tom he had bored a hole in the snow pile and 
apparently planned to live there. 
While peeping into this hole two mice scamp- 
ered along it. This snow would protect them 
against coyotes. Safe under the snow they 
could make their little tunnels, eat grass and 
gnaw bark, without the fear of a coyote jump- 
ing upon them. 
Tracks and records in the snow showed that 
for two days a coyote did not capture a thing to 
eat. During this time he had travelled miles. 
He had closely covered a territory about three 
miles in diameter. There was game in it, but 
his luck was against him. He was close to 
a rabbit, grabbed a mouthful of feathers—but 
the grouse escaped, and even looked at a number 
of deer. At last, after more than two days, and 
possibly longer, he caught a mouse or two. 
Antelope in the plains appear to live in the 
same territory the year round. Many times 
in winter I have been out on the plains and 
found a flock feeding where I had seen it ir 
