592 THE NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC MAGAZINE 



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Photo by George Shiras, 3rd 



BY STREWING CHEESE FROM THE BANK AEONG THE SURFACE OF A EOG EXTENDING 

 INTO THE LAKE THE ANIMAE WAS TAKEN IN THE POSITION SHOWN 



STORY OF AN ITINERANT COON 



The following extracts from a camp 

 diary chronicle the events of one week 

 on White Fish Lake and preface the 

 story of a wandering coon : 



"August 21, 1903. — After arising and 

 before I had breakfast, Jim came from 

 the barn with the announcement that all 

 the young chickens had been killed dur- 

 ing the night — some 60 in number. The 

 various broods were more than half 

 grown, and for several weeks had been 

 consorting together at night by huddling 

 in a narrow recess between two adjoin- 

 ing buildings. Jim having noticed that 

 they were not about the yard in the 

 morning, found them all dead in the 

 narrow space referred to. Pulling a few 

 bodies out with the aid of a rake, he 

 found the throats had been cut by some 



predaceous animal, and he proceeded to 

 investigate. 



"I recalled a somewhat similar tragedy 

 several years before, when a large num- 

 ber had been killed by a half-grown 

 skunk. Jim, however, said it was a coon 

 in the present case, and the statement 

 excited some derision on my part, since 

 this animal was utterly unknown in the 

 region. Jim's conclusion, it appeared, 

 was not a matter of guesswork, for he 

 found that the bodies of a number of 

 chickens had been torn open and the 

 liver eaten — a coon trick, according to 

 Jim. 



"He further found that the animal 

 had entered the poultry yard by remov- 

 ing some heavy flat stones from beneath 

 the wire fence — a thing that neither a 

 fox, skunk, nor weasel was capable of 

 doing — while the concluding evidence be- 



