Then I tried spreading plastic wax where the beasts would walk on it, in pathways or before dens. How they did scoff! The simplest ground squirrel knew too much to venture on my waxen snare; around 'it, or if hemmed in, over it, with a mighty bound they went; but never a track did I so secure.
Photography naturally suggested itself, but the difficulties proved as great as unexpected, almost as great as in casting. Not one track in one thousand is fit to photograph; the essential details are almost always left out. You must have open sunlight, and even when the weather is perfect there are practically but two times each day when it is possible--in mid-morning and mid-afternoon, when the sun is high enough for clear photographs and low enough to cast a shadow in the faint track.
The Coon that Showed Me How
Then a new method was suggested in an unexpected way. A friend of mine had a pet coon which he kept in a cage in his bachelor quarters up town. One day, during my friend's {195} absence the coon got loose and set about a series of long-deferred exploring expeditions, beginning with the bachelor's bedroom. The first promising object was a writing desk. Mounting by a chair the coon examined several uninteresting books and papers, and then noticed higher up a large stone bottle. He had several times found pleasurable stuff in bottles, so he went for it. The cork was lightly in and easily disposed of, but the smell was far from inviting, for it was merely a quart of ink. Determined to leave no stone unturned, however, the coon upset the ink to taste and try. Alas! it tasted even worse than it smelt; it was an utter failure as a beverage.
And the coon, pushing it contemptuously away, turned to a pile of fine hand-made, deckle-edge, heraldry note-paper--the pride of my friend's heart--and when he raised his inky little paws there were left on the paper some beautiful black prints. This was a new idea: the coon tried it again and again. But the ink held out longer than the paper, so that the fur-clad painter worked over sundry books, and the adjoining walls, while the ink, dribbling over everything, formed a great pool below the desk. Something attracted the artist's attention, causing him to jump down. He landed in the pool of ink, making it splash in all directions; some of the black splotches reached the white counterpane of the bachelor's bed. Another happy idea: the coon now leaped on the bed, racing around as long as the ink on his feet gave results. As he paused to rest, or perhaps to see if any places had been neglected, the door opened, and in came the landlady. The scene which followed was too painful for description; no one present enjoyed it. My friend was sent for to come and take his coon out of there forever. He came and took him away, I suppose "forever." He had only one other place for him--his office and there it was I made the animal's acquaintance and heard of his exploit--an ink and paper, if not a literary affair.
This gave me the hint at the Zoo I needed, a plan to make an authentic record of animal tracks. Armed with printer's ink and paper rolls I set about gathering a dictionary collection of imprints.
After many failures and much experiment, better methods were devised. A number of improvements were made by my wife; one was the substitution of black paint for printer's ink, as the latter dries too quickly; another was the padding of the paper, which should be light and soft for very light animals, and stronger and harder for the heavy. Printing from a mouse, for example, is much like printing a delicate {196} etching; ink, paper, dampness, etc., must be exactly right, and furthermore, you have this handicap--you cannot regulate the pressure. This is, of course, strictly a Zoo method. All attempts to secure black prints from wild animals have been total failures. The paper, the smell of paint, etc., are enough to keep the wild things away.
In the Zoo we spread the black pad and the white paper in a narrow, temporary lane, and one by one drove, or tried to drive, the captives over them, securing a series of tracks that are life-size, properly spaced, absolutely authentic, and capable of yielding more facts as the observer learns more about the subject.
As related here, all this sounds quite easy. But no one has any idea how cross, crooked, and contrary a creature can be, until he wishes it to repeat for him some ordinary things that it has hitherto done hourly. Some of them balked at the paint, some at the paper, some made a leap to clear all, and thereby wrecked the entire apparatus. Some would begin very well, but rush back when half-way over, so as to destroy the print already made, and in most cases the calmest, steadiest, tamest of beasts became utterly wild, erratic, and unmanageable when approached with tracklogical intent.
Trying It on the Cat