Raymond S. Spears

“ Few trails survive a fall of six inches of snow, even in a wide, windless forest. Yet a bear track made in loose snow, or a fox track, say, made in wet snow, will remain weeks and even months. The new snow, however, is a new page which is soon filled with natural history.
When one has learned to know the fresh trail of one animal, say that of a mink or fox, a far stride toward reading the snow has been taken. If one takes that trail and follows its wanderings for even an hour, the delight of discovery will quicken the observer. ”

“ A light fall of snow on a strong crust is a thrilling page, furnishing narrative on narrative, with conclusions in many instances transcribed in the Book of Doom. Fluffy, ephemeral, matchless in its precision, and endless in its detail, the snow page displays the ways and whims of the great and small, of the thrifty and of the careless, of the roving hunters, of the home-abiding rodents ”

“ Fear is the most impressive characteristic of animal trails; it is easily seen when one has mastered the rudiments of the snow language. It takes keener observation to see other workings of the animal mind, but an old trapper becomes marvelously adept in reading trails. I followed a fisher track with one for a considerable distance. The snow was deep and loose, making snow-shoeing very tiresome. The fisher (pekan, mustella pennanti) usually plunges along with jumps from three to four feet long. A very impressive track it makes, giving one the idea of great strength in reserve. ”

“ In reading the trail of a wild animal in the forest, one is brought close to the heart of the trail-maker; how close depends upon the reader. One may glance at the trail, decide that "It's only some little animal!" ”

“ Every layer of snow falling in the forest is written upon by fisher and ermine, mink and mouse, squirrel and rabbit, and by all the other creatures which roam the deep woods in winter.
In the Adirondacks one finds more red-squirrel tracks than any other kind. Rabbits, deer-mice, fox, ruffed grouse, porcupines, and ermines follow in decreasing abundance. Then come the rarer prints of deer, mink, marten, fisher, otter, and bears, the treasures of snow classics. It is something to be able to recognize the track of a cat or dog ”

“ Measuring tracks is a pretty practice. It is a profitable task for the determined student of snow-reading, worth all the backaches and cold fingers the stooping and jotting down of the figures produce. A careless way is to measure two or three rods of track, count the footprints, and take the average; but when one reads in his notes. "Fox tracks, wet snow, 24 ft. 12 strides with right paws, 12 with left—varied from 14 to 28 inches," though far better than no measurements at all, they are unsatisfactory. ”

“ But sheer muscular delight in the freedom of "good going" was shown at every jump in the careless landing of the feet, and once with a beautiful and striking display of strength. The ordinary jump of a weasel is a curve, very graceful and "full of life." This ermine ran apparently with the exuberance of the day in its heart, but mere running was not enough. ”

“ Moreover, it drags its toes as it lifts its paws, and comes down heel first, making in some respects the most interesting of woods trails. In Wisconsin the porcupine is protected by law, for it is the one animal in the woods which a lost and starving man can kill with a club. Its spines protect it from most aggression, till the fisher comes upon it. The fisher kills and eats porcupines, in spite of the armor, which is one reason why woodsmen take delight in the fisher. They consider the lithe, strong-jawed fighter more admirable than the armor-plated hulk. ”

“ But they follow sleigh-roads for rods at a time. Sometimes, however, a fox fails to notice the snow-shoe track till it is almost under paw. This startles the fox, and it invariably springs back and runs several jumps away from the suspicious depression and odor in the snow. A fox thus startled will sometimes run toward the track three or four jumps, but, losing its nerve, turn back, afraid even to jump over the trail. Usually, after two or three attempts, the fox will clear the man-track, doubtless jumping pretty high. ”

“ There is a "look" to the track, too, which a practiced eye recognizes, an appearance which even a partially trained eye may distinguish, should a crossing of the mink track and a marten track, say, be discovered.
There is always this problem of identifying the track of an animal. It is sometimes easy; frequently one will find a track which it is not possible to identify surely, an old track, much defaced by snow, thaw, or evaporation, being unrecognizable long before its last trace visible to the eye is destroyed. ”

“ When one has studied trails in the snow for a time, the animals cease to be mere foxes and fishers and rabbits. One learns to recognize certain individuals; then indeed is one a silent spectator of the pageant of forest nature. ”

“ The "sameness" of nature is in the eye of the unlearned and unobserved only. No two fox trails were ever exactly alike. In fact, every fox has its own character, its own habits, and each day its own divergencies from all the other days of its life. A folding four-foot rule discloses variations in the length of steps. I have seen around a trap the tracks of a fox which averaged three inches apart; stepping off down grade, they will sometimes pace twenty-eight inches to a step. ”

“ The lengths spanned by the various impressions made at each jump were 33, 33, 31, 29 inches, etc., the 29-inch track being the gathering for the 80-inch jump, and the 36-inch track representing the landing from the 93-inch spring. In general, the longest jumps of animals are preceded by a comparatively short jump or two, and are followed by a short jump.
Usually, when a fox approaches a man's trail, of whatever age, in the woods it displays much anxiety. In dozens of fox tracks crossing old snow-shoe tracks, I have never seen an instance where a fox stepped in the snow-shoe track. ”

“ As near many an Adirondack camp, there were last winter trails of an ermine leading in all directions from this little bark-roof shack. The ermine likes a camp. It builds a nest under the floor, and hunts mice among the bark layers ”

“ The figures should tell whether they were growing shorter, longer, or merely happened to vary so much. A short stride commonly means "going slow," along stride, "going fast."
On Little Black Creek there is a hunters' camp. ”