Footprints or Tracks
Footprints of animals.
In trailing animals look for footprints in soft earth, sand, or snow. The hind foot of the muskrat will leave a print in the mud like that of a little hand, and with it will be the fore-foot print, showing but four short fingers, and generally the streaks where the hard tail drags behind. [Fig. 4] shows what these look like. If you are familiar with the dog track you will know something about the footprints of the fox, wolf, and coyote, for they are much alike. [Fig. 9] gives a clean track of the fox, but often there is the imprint of hairs between and around the toes. A wolf track is larger and is like [Fig. 8]. The footprint of a deer shows the cloven hoof, with a difference between the buck's and the doe's. The doe's toes are pointed and, when not spread, the track is almost heart-shaped ([Fig. 7]), while the buck has blunter, more rounded toes, like [Fig. 10]. The two round lobes are at the back of the foot, the other end points in the direction the deer has taken. Sometimes you will find deer tracks with the toes spread wide apart. That means the animal has been running. All animals' toes spread more or less when they run. A bear track is like [Fig. 11], but a large bear often leaves other evidences of his presence than his footprints. He will frequently turn a big log over or tear one open in his search for ants. He will stand on his hind legs and gnaw a hole in a dead tree or tall stump, and a bee-tree will bear the marks of his climbing on its trunk. It is interesting to find a tree with the scars of bruin's feet, made prominent by small knobs where his claws have sunk into the bark. Each scar swells and stands out like one of his toes. When you see bark scraped off the trees some distance from the ground, you may be sure that a horned animal has passed that way. Where the trees are not far apart a wide-horned animal, like the bull moose, scrapes the bark with his antlers as he passes.
Footprints of animals.
The cat-like lynx leaves a cat-like track ([Fig. 6]), which shows no print of the claws, and the mink's track is like [Fig. 2]. Rabbits' tracks are two large oblongs, then two almost round marks. The oblongs are the print of the large hind feet, which, with the peculiar gait of the rabbit, always come first. The large, hind-feet tracks point the direction the animal has taken. [Fig. 1] is the track of the caribou, and shows the print of the dew-claws, which are the two little toes up high at the back of the foot. It is when the earth is soft and the foot sinks in deeply that the dew-claws leave a print, or perhaps when the foot spreads wide in running.
[Fig. 3] is the print of the foot of a red squirrel. [Fig. 5] is the fisher's track, and [Fig. 12] is that of a sheep. Pig tracks are much like those of sheep, but wider. When you have learned to recognize the varying freshness of tracks you will know how far ahead the animal probably is. Other tracks you will learn as you become more familiar with the animals, and you will also be able to identify the tracks of the wild birds.