RACCOON - A NOCTURNAL PROWLER

The Raccoon has, for many years, beenone of our foremost fur bearing animals but the collegian, with his fondness for the fashionable, recently brought him into the limelight with the well known coon skin coat. Yet, regardless of the beauty which such a garment might possess, the former owners of these pelts are far more interesting as part of nature's scheme of things.

About Longmire the Raccoon is quite abundant. Here, at many of the homes he finds friendly "handouts' but other than these regular grubstake journeys he is rarely in evidence; yet his nocturnal wanderings are exposed by the characteristic footprints that are found in the snow. These footprints are very striking. Long before the writer had seen them he had read of their distinctive character and when, what appeared to be the tracks of a small child, were found in the snow positive identification of the raccoon's presence was an easy matter. With a fondness for making his home high up in old snags or hollow trees he must of necessity be an expert tree climber and the fore paws, with the toes sharply clawed and separated like the fingers of a human hand, are exceptionally wel adapted for grasping food as well as climbing. His hind feet, which rest flat upon the ground, leave a track not unlike the footprint of a small child.

If on were lucky enough to see a raccoon in broad daylight he would see a stocky little beast of general dark grey color, with short muscular legs, whose most striking characteristic is the black band that extends across the face at the eyes -- not unlike the average person's conception of a bandit's mask. Yet while his nocturnal propensities may give indication of his need for such a disguise, he is one of our best citizens -- rarely causing trouble. He has, on occassion, deftly removed the caps of milk bottles, with his fore paws and lapped up the creme. But then, perhaps the milk should have been indoors.

His footprints bear
a striking resemblence
to those of a small
child.

Click to see a copy of the original page of this article (~125K)