When the sweet acorns, dropping in the frosty night, tempt the coon to a later feast, there is as good sport and primer peltry. In any of the nights wherein this sport may be pursued, the man of lazy mould and contemplative mind loves best the hunt deemed unsuccessful by the more ardent hunters, when the hounds strike the trail of a wandering fox and carry a tide of wild music, flooding and ebbing over valley and hilltop, while the indolent hunter reclines at ease, smoking his pipe and listening, content to let more ambitious hunters stumble over ledges and wallow through swamps. When winter begins, the coon retires for a long and comfortable sleep, warmly clothed in fur and fat. A great midwinter thaw awakens him, fooled out of a part of his nap by the siren song of the south wind, and he wanders forth in quest of something. If food, he never finds it, and as far as I have been able to determine, does not even seek it. I should imagine, reading the record of his journey as he prints it in his course from hollow tree or hollow ledge to other hollow trees and hollow ledges, that he had been awakened to a sense of loneliness and was seeking old friends in familiar haunts, with whom to talk over last year's cornfield raids and frogging parties in past summer nights--perchance to plan future campaigns. Or is it an inward fire and no outward warmth that has thawed him into this sudden activity? Has he, like many of his biggers and betters, gone a-wooing in winter nights? At such times the thrifty hunter who has an eye more to profit and prime peltry than to sport, goes forth armed only with an axe. Taking the track of the wanderers, he follows it to their last tarrying place. If it be a cave, they are safe except from the trap when they come forth to begin another journey; but if it is a hollow tree, woe betide the poor wretches. The hunter saps the foundation of their castle, and when it crashes to its fall he ignominiously knocks the dazed inmates on the head. It is fashionable for others to wear the coat which becomes the raccoon much better than them and which once robbed of he can never replace. During the spring and early summer little is seen of the raccoon. His tracks may be found on a sandy shore or margin of a brook and occasionally his call can be heard, if indeed it be his, but beyond these he gives little evidence of his existence. There must be nocturnal excursions for food, but for the most part old and young abide in their rocky fortress or wooden tower. They are reported to be a playful family, and the report is confirmed by the pranks of domesticated members of it. Sometimes there will be found in one of their ravaged homes a rounded gnarl worn smooth with much handling or pawing, the sole furniture of the house and evidently a plaything.