No. 1,
page 161. Here he was bounding; the forefeet are together, the
hindfeet track ahead, and tail mark shows, and but four toes in each
track, though the creature has five on each foot. He is a dreaded
enemy of poor Molly Cottontail, and more than once I have seen the
records of his relentless pursuit. One of these fits in admirably as
an illustration of our present study.

A Story of the Trail

It was in the winter of 1900, I was standing with my brother, a
business man, on Goat Island, Niagara, when he remarked, "How is it?
You and I have been in the same parts of America for twenty years, yet
I never see any of the curious sides of animal life that you are
continually coming across."

"Largely because you do not study tracks," was the reply. "Look at
your feet now. There is a whole history to be read."

"I see some marks," he replied, "that might have been made by some
animal." "That is the track of a cottontail," was the answer. "Now,
let us read the chapter of his life. See, he went in a general
straight course as though making some well-known haunt, his easy pace,
with eight or ten inches between each set of tracks, shows unalarm.
But see here, joining on, is something else."

"So there is. Another cottontail."

"Not at all, this new track is smaller, the forefeet are more or less
paired, showing that the creature can climb a tree; there is a
suggestion of toe pads and there is a mark telling evidently of a long
tail; these things combined with the size and the place identify it
clearly. This is the trail of a mink. See! he has also found the
rabbit track, and finding it fresh, he followed it. His bounds are
lengthened now, but the rabbit's are not, showing that the latter was
unconscious of the pursuit."

After one hundred yards the double trail led us to a great pile of
wood, and into this both went. Having followed his {193} game into
dense cover, the trailer's first business was to make sure that it did
not go out the other side. We went carefully around the pile; there
were no tracks leading out.

"Now," I said, "if you will take the trouble to move that wood pile
you will find in it the remains of the rabbit half devoured and the
mink himself. At this moment he is no doubt curled up asleep."

As the pile was large and the conclusion more or less self-evident, my
brother was content to accept my reading of the episode.

[Illustration: Tracks.]
Dog tracks, front and back (1/2 life-size)