The proof in this case was purely circumstantial, but I think that we can come to only one conclusion; that the evidence of the track in the snow was complete and convincing.
{198}
TRACKS
1. Blarina in snow
2. Deermouse
3. Meadow mouse
4. Masked shrew
{199 continued}
Meadow Mouse
The meadow mouse autograph (page 189) illustrates the black-track method. At first these dots look inconsequent and fortuitous, but a careful examination shows that the creature had four toes with claws on the forefeet, and five on the hind, which is evidence, though not conclusive, that it was a rodent; the absence of tail marks shows that the tail was short or wanting; the tubercules on each palm show to what group of mice the creature belongs. The alternation of the track shows that it was a ground-animal, not a tree-climber; the spacing shows the shortness of the legs; their size determines the size of the creature. Thus we come near to reconstructing the animal from its tracks, and see how by the help of these studies, we can get much light on the by-gone animals whose only monuments are tracks in the sedimentary rocks about us--rocks that, when they received these imprints, were the muddy margin of these long-gone creatures' haunts.
What the Trail Gives--The Secrets of the Woods
There is yet another feature of trail study that gives it exceptional value--it is an account of the creature pursuing its ordinary life. If you succeeded in getting a glimpse of a fox or a hare in the woods, the chances are a hundred to one that it was aware of your presence first. They are much cleverer than we are at this sort of thing, and if they do not actually sight or sense you, they observe, and are warned by the action of some other creature that did sense us, and so cease their occupations to steal away or hide. But the snow story will {201} tell of the life that the animal ordinarily leads--its method of searching for food, its kind of food, the help it gets from its friends, or sometimes from its rivals--and thus offers an insight into its home ways that is scarcely to be attained in any other way. The trailer has the key to a new storehouse of Nature's secrets, another of the Sybilline books is opened to his view; his fairy godmother has, indeed, conferred on him a wonderful {202} gift in opening his eyes to the foot-writing of the trail. It is like giving sight to the blind man, like the rolling away of fogs from a mountain view, and the trailer comes closer than others to the heart of the woods.
Dowered with a precious power is he,
He drinks where others sipped,
And wild things write their lives for him
In endless manuscript.