What About Winter Sleepers
Although so much is to be read in the wintry white, we cannot now make a full account of all the woodland four-foots, for there are some kinds that do not come out on the snow; they sleep more or less all winter.
Dog tracks, front and back (1/2 life-size)
Cat tracks, front and bad (1/2 life-size)
Uppermost, well-developed human foot
Middle, a foot always cramped by boots
Bottom, a bare foot, never in boots
Muskrat tracks, (1/3 life-size)
{194}
Thus, one rarely sees the track of a chipmunk or woodchuck in truly wintry weather; and never, so far as I know, have the trails of jumping mouse or mud turtle been seen in the snow. These we can track only in the mud or dust. Such trails cannot be followed as far as those in the snow, simply because the mud and dust do not cover the whole country, but they are usually as clear and in some respects more easy of record.
How to Make Pictures of Tracks
It is a most fascinating amusement to learn some creature's way of life by following its fresh track for hours in good snow. I never miss such a chance. If I cannot find a fresh track, I take a stale one, knowing that, theoretically, it is fresher at every step, and from practical experience that it always brings one to some track that is fresh.
How often I have wished for a perfect means of transferring these wild life tales to paper or otherwise making a permanent collection. My earliest attempts were in free-hand drawing, which answers, but has this great disadvantage--it is a translation, a record discolored by an intervening personality, and the value of the result is likely to be limited by one's own knowledge at the time.
Casting in plaster was another means attempted; but not one track in ten thousand is fit to cast. Nearly all are blemished and imperfect in some way, and the most abundant--those in snow--cannot be cast at all.