t kernels, bruising and
destroying much more than they devour. Sometimes their ravages are a
matter of serious concern to the farmer. But every such neighborhood has
its coon-dog, and the boys and young men dearly love the sport. The
party sets out about eight or nine o'clock of a dark, moonless night,
and stealthily approaches the cornfield. The dog knows his business, and
when he is put into a patch of corn and told to "hunt them up" he makes
a thorough search, and will not be misled by any other scent. You hear
him rattling through the corn, hither and yon, with great speed. The
coons prick up their ears, and quickly take themselves off on the
opposite side of the field. In the stillness you may sometimes hear a
single stone rattle on the wall as they hurry toward the woods. If the
dog finds nothing he comes back to his master in a short time, and says
in his dumb way, "No coon there." But if he strikes a trail you
presently hear a louder rattling on the stone wall, and then a hurried
bark as he enters the woods, succeeded in a few minutes by loud and
repeated barkings as he reaches the foot of the tree in which the coon
has taken refuge. Then follows a pellmell rush as the cooning party dash
up the hill, into the woods, through the brush and the darkness, falling
over prostrate trees, pitching into gullies and hollows, losing hats and
tearing clothes, till finally, guided by the baying of the faithful dog,
they reach the tree. The first thing now in order is to kindle a fire,
and, if its light reveals the coon, to shoot him; if not, to fell the
tree with an axe, unless this last expedient happens to be too great a
sacrifice of timber and of strength, in which case it is necessary to
sit down at the foot of the tree and wait till morning.

[Illustration: RACCOON]

XI

THE PORCUPINE

Among our wild animals there are three that are slow-moving,
dull-witted, and almost fearless,--the skunk, the opossum, and the
porcupine. The two latter seem to be increasing in most parts of the
country. The opossum is becoming quite common in the valley of the
Hudson, and the porcupine is frequently met with in parts of the country
where it was rarely or never seen forty years ago.

When the boys in late fall now go cooning where I used to go cooning in
my youth, the dogs often run on a porcupine or drive him up a tree, and
thus the sport is interrupted. Sometimes the dog comes to them with his
mouth stuck full of quills,