?88 Boy Scouts example, there are, within twenty miles of New York City, fully fifty different kinds- not counting birds, reptiles, or fishes -- one .quarter of Which at least are abundant. Or more particularly within the limits of Greater New York there are at least a dozen species of wild beasts, half of which are quite common. "Then how is it that w? never see any?" is the fi?st question of the incredulous. The answer is: Long ag6 the beasts learned the dire lesson- man is our worst enemy; shun him at any price. And the simplest way to do this is to come out only at night. Man is a d?ytime creature; he isblind in the soft half- light that most beasts prefer.
While many an/m/ds have always limited their activity to
the hours of twilight and gloom, there are not a few'that moved about in .daytime, but have given up that portion of their working d?y in order to avoid the arch enemy, . Thus they can florafish under our noses and est.at our tables, without our knowledge or consent. They come and go atWill, a?l the world knows nothing of them; their p.veseace might long go .unsuspected but for .one thing, well known to the hunter, the trapper,' and the naturalist: wherever the wild four- foot goes, it leaves behind a record of its visit, its name, the direction whence it came, the time, the thing it did or tried to do, with the time and direction of departure.. These it puts down in the ancient script. Each of these .dotted lines, called the trail, is a wonderful, Unfinished record of the crea- ture's life during the time.it made the same, and it needs only the patient work of the naturalist to decipher that record and from it' learn much about the animal that made 'it, without that animal ever having been seen. Savages are more skilful at it than civilized folk, because tracking is their serious life-long pursuit and they do not injure their eyes with books. Intelligence is important here as else- where, yet it is a remarkable fact that the lowest race of man- kind, the Australian blacks, are reputed to be by far the best trackers; not only are their eyes and attention developed and disciplined, but they have retained much of the scent power that civilized man has lost, and can follow a fresh track, partly at least by smell. It is hard to over-value the powers of the clever tracker. To him the trail of each animal is not a mere series of similar footprints; it is an accurate account of the creature's life, habit, changing whims, and emotions during the portion of life whose record is in view. These are indeed autobiag?p?(?
