THE TRANQUIL WOODS COVER THE RISE AND FALL OF THE RIDGES
The deep tranquil woods cover the rise and fall of the ridges for a good stretch of miles, and a good deal of hunting and trapping is to be had in them. Last month we came on fresh raccoon tracks, like prints of little hands, in the leaf mould of the wood road, and coons are often shot here. One day, as we were walking, there was a great growling and barking from our dogs, and we found that they had treed a porcupine.
In my Grandfather’s time, sheep had to be driven at night to the tops of the hills, because of the bears in the Tresumpscott woods; and only two years ago there was an outcry among the farmers because sheep were being killed. Everybody watched his neighbor’s dog, but Oliver Newcomb, who lives on a little farm in the heart of the forest tract, coming home at dusk up the wood road, heard a growling and snarling, and came on a great Bay Lynx, the only one seen in this part of the country for many years. Oliver is a man who is almost never seen without his gun, and he shot the marauder, and got twenty-five dollars for the skin, a real windfall for a young man on a small forest farm, with wife to keep and five children. The skin was mounted, and set up in the library of the Soldiers’ Home.
The Bay Lynx is a much longer, more panther-like creature than our common Canada Lynx (the Loup Cervier or Bob-cat), and is of a general bay color, not unlike that of the Mountain Lion of the West. I have wondered if this might not be the panther or “painter” which was the terror of our Northern woods to early settlers.
“Big Game” has increased greatly in our State of late years, partly from the enforcement of strict game laws, partly because the wolves have nearly all been killed off. Deer are so common as to be a menace to crops in some places, and there are at least three thriving beaver colonies in our part of the State.
In 1868 my father, driving on a fishing trip through a town sixty-five miles north of us, was shown a pair of blanched moose antlers, set up over the sign-post at the cross-roads.
“Look at that well,” the stage driver said. “That’s a sight you’ll never see again, not in this State!”
To-day, as every hunter knows, moose are plentiful, all through the two-thirds of the State that lies under forest; and not only there, for this very autumn three have been seen in the Tresumpscott woods, while both last year and this, a black bear has spent several weeks in our neighborhood.