The ’Coon
has been along, and this is all you are likely to see of him unless you take a moonlight stroll, for Master 'Coon shuns daylight, and is about only at night. Being a pretty and an intelligent little animal, he is sometimes tamed and even allowed the freedom of the house, like a dog or cat, but 'coons are as mischievous as monkeys, and very frequently the little hands are used to work disaster among the household gods. When that occurs a chain is used to keep Master 'Coon out of further trouble and consequent punishment.
The 'coon’s fur is long, thick, and of a pepper-and-salt gray. Its tail is decorated with rings, and its broad white face is marked with three radiating black lines across the forehead and black settings to its eyes.
Though all you find is the footprint of this nocturnal little fellow you may rest assured that somewhere, just above your head perhaps, he is snugly curled up in the hollow of a dead limb awaiting the darkness, when he will sally forth to seek his supper.
In the softly creeping twilight, when the woods become more mysterious, and one’s nerves are almost like the wild things in their quick response to sudden noises, the night prowlers begin to awake and stir about. Before darkness quite settles down is the time to make the acquaintance of the night birds, nocturnal insects, and some of the small animals which avoid the garish light of day.
Though they love darkness better than light these little creatures are just as harmless as the ones you have seen in the genial sunshine. Do not be startled, then, if a small dark body suddenly sails through the air near you, but watch it in its flight, see how it courses downward, always downward, on a gradual incline until, with a short upward curve, it alights on a low branch or trunk of a tree. From the summit of a tall pine its flight has been, perhaps, fifty yards, yet it has no wings and in the dim light you will see before you only a big-eyed, satin-coated little squirrel, and you will have met, it may for[it may for] the first time, your neighbor
The Flying Squirrel
Look closely and notice that he wears a suit of brownish gray, white underneath, bordered with black, which fits him so loosely about the legs and sides that when he stretches out
Flying Squirrel. and flattens himself he may almost be said to be web-legged, and can sail through the air like a parachute.