: A Hermit's Wild Friends; or Eighteen Years in the Woods by Walton Mason Augustus - Animal behavior; Zoology

@FreeBooksThu 08 Jun, 2023

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ould answer from the surrounding woods.

When the sweet acorns were ripe, Satan was unusually active early in the evening. At this early hour the coons were abroad in search for food, and Satan scented them, and did his best to attract their attention. One coon passed near the cabin every night and answered Satan's cries, so I imagined that it was his mate.

Many writers claim that the tremulous cry attributed to the coon is made by the little screech-owl . It is true, doubtless, that people that do not know both cries may make such a mistake.

The little owls appear to resent my intrusion on their vested rights, so from early spring to late fall they haunt my sleeping-quarters, and divide their time between snapping their beaks and uttering their monotonous notes. As I sleep in the open air nine months out of the twelve, I have a good chance to study both cries, and could not mistake one for the other.

The coon is a ventriloquist. His cry seems to come down from the sky. A friend came in from the city one night to hear the coon cry. It was a moonlight night, and the coon was staked out in the dooryard. My friend was not looking when the first cry was uttered, but claimed that the sound came from the trees overhead. Afterward he saw the coon in the act, and could not make a mistake.

When Satan uttered the cry, he was always sitting on his haunches. He would throw his head up until his nose pointed skyward, then blow the sound out between his half-closed lips.

My friend had brought in a blanket and hammock, and was prepared to spend the night in the open air. He slung his hammock near mine, and we turned in about ten o'clock. He was nervous and restless, and said he could not sleep with the little owls about him. Every fifteen or twenty minutes he would call to me to ask about some noise of the night, common enough, but which appeared strange and startling to him in the strained condition of his nerves. Soon after midnight a small animal, doubtless a stoat looking for an owl supper, dropped on to my friend's blanket. There was a smothered cry, full of fear, and a flying figure that did not stop until my hammock was reached. Nothing that I could say would induce the frightened man to go back to that hammock. He suggested at last that he would sleep in the cabin. I assented, and we soon had a bed arranged in a bunk. The cabin was overrun with white-footed mice, and I looked for more trouble.

Twenty minutes later I heard several war-whoops, and I saw my friend tumble out of the cabin into the dooryard. "Are you awake?" cried he. "Certainly," I answered, "you don't think there is any one asleep in this county after the racket you have made, do you?" "Oh, let up with your fooling," said he, "this is a serious thing. I sleep with my mouth open; suppose one of those mice had run down my throat and choked me to death? I am going home." And home he did go. I accompanied him through the woods to Western Avenue, and returned in time to get three hours' sleep. My friend was like hundreds of other nervous people that I had known in a lifetime, who were too sensitive to enjoy a night in the open air. To be in full accord with nature one should get accustomed to the presence of a snake now and then, in the open-air bed.

Satan was an apt scholar. I taught him to pull in his chain, hand over hand, sailor-fashion. The chain was twelve feet in length. I begun by tying on a nut about two feet from the coon. He pulled in the chain with his fore feet, which he used as hands. I would say to him, "Pull in the chain. Pull in the chain," and inside of a week he would obey the order without the use of food. I think he enjoyed the sport.

The boys that visited my cabin thought it great fun to play with Satan. They would pull the chain out and watch the coon pull it in. When Satan got tired he would coil the chain and lay on it, and the play was ended for the time being. After he had rested awhile he would go on with the play. When he was resting, if a boy offered to reach the chain he would lay back his ears, growl, and show his teeth. When he was ready to play he would sit up on his hind feet, prick his ears forward and look clever; then the boys could reach under him and pull out the chain without danger.

One day, while the coon was chained to a stake in the dooryard, he killed a pet bird in a manner so cruel and crafty, that it caused me to name him Satan then and there. I had placed a piece of matting by the stake to which the coon was chained. He understood that the matting was for his use, and he would cry to be fed while chained out. He used the matting as a dining-table and bed combined. The pet bird that was killed was a male catbird. Satan had left a piece of cookie on the matting, and the catbird thought to appropriate it. I was writing, not thirty feet away, and looked up just in time to see the flash of Satan's paw. I shouted, and rushed to the rescue. When I reached the coon the bird had disappeared. Satan looked so innocent and surprised that I was led to believe that the bird had escaped. I returned to my writing, and the coon settled down for a nap. An hour later a visitor from the city called to get the loan of a book on birds. I went to the cabin for the book, and when I returned Satan was patting down the edge of the mat. He saw me, and put on his innocent look. He coiled up as if he were about to try to sleep in a new spot. My suspicion was aroused. I pulled away the coon and under the mat found the dead bird. He had killed the bird and placed it under him so swiftly that I did not detect the trick when I went to the rescue. For a full hour he simulated sleep while he had the dead bird under him all the time. When I went to the cabin he hid the dead body under the mat. I gave him a severe whipping and placed the dead bird on his mat. The next day I buried the body, so Satan did not profit by his crafty deed. He remembered the whipping, and ever after did not molest the birds. I once saw a young towhee-bunting sit on his hind foot and eat from a cookie that the coon had tried to hide. How it would have fared with the bird, if I had been absent, is a question.

I don't think Satan had any respect for the Sabbath, but he knew the day, nevertheless. On week-days, I returned from city about nine o'clock A. M. Soon after, I would stake Satan in the dooryard, and he would seem much pleased with the change. I got up every morning at daybreak. My first duty was to feed the birds and Satan, then get my breakfast. At first I did not let Satan out of his cage on Sundays, on account of the dogs that my visitors brought along. Every Sunday morning I would feed Satan as soon as I was out of my hammock, as I did on week-day mornings, but he would not eat or drink, and constantly tried to open the door of the cage. He certainly knew, thus early in the morning, that it was Sunday, and he would have to remain hived up in his cage all day. It seemed to me, that if Satan was intelligent enough to keep run of the days of the week, he ought to know about the dogs, and was willing to fight them rather than be cooped up all day. I knew all about the fighting ability of the raccoon. It had been my good fortune to observe the evolution of a young coon, from a helpless, sprawling bunch of fat and fur, to an old coon, with a bristling battery of claws and teeth operated by chain-lightning. After due consideration I concluded to let Satan take chances with the dogs. The next Sunday I staked him in the dooryard and awaited developments.

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