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But they wisely took care not to make good their word, for they were only a pack of poor ignorant tories, who did nothing on principle, and were therefore ready to quit their purpose the moment they saw danger in the way. Our success at vagrant hunting was marvellous. I hardly think we could, in the same time, have caught as many raccoons in any swamp on Pedee.
And then followed other animals that couldn't run so fast such as raccoons, and skunks, and woodchucks. Not for years had Mrs. Bear seen so many of the forest-people and they were all so frightened, and in such a hurry to get away from the fire, that not one of them noticed Mrs. Bear as she stood in her doorway. "Where are they going, Mother?" It was Cuffy who asked the question.
When Santa Klaas travels, he always brings back good things. Now when he first came to New Netherland in America, what did he find to take back to Holland? Well, it was here, on our continent, that he found corn, potatoes, pumpkins, maple sugar, and something to put in pipes to smoke; besides strange birds and animals, such as turkeys and raccoons, in addition to many new flowers.
In regard to the ducks and chickens of the farm, the raccoons were shrewd enough to know that any extensive depredations upon them would call down the swift vengeance of the farmer-folk; but they could not realize that they were in mischief when they helped themselves to these juicy, growing things.
Then the triumphant raccoons touched noses in brief congratulation, and presently moved off to their hunting as if nothing had happened. The wild kindred, as a rule, maintain a poise which the most extravagant adventures this side of death seldom deeply disturb.
Even chub and suckers learn something in course of time; and as for wood-mice and chipmunks, under such incentive as an active family of raccoons can give them they attain to a truly heartless cunning in the art of making their enemies go hungry.
At the end of each corps appeared the strangest huddle of animation, equine, canine, bovine, and human, that ever civilian beheld mules, asses, horses, colts, cows, sheep, pigs, goats, raccoons, chickens, and dogs led by negroes blacker then Erebus.
The squirrel that had taken all this pains had evidently reasoned with himself thus: "Now, these are extremely fine chestnuts, and I want them; if I wait till the burrs open on the tree, the crows and jays will be sure to carry off a great many of the nuts before they fall; then, after the wind has rattled out what remain, there are the mice, the chipmunks, the red squirrels, the raccoons, the grouse, to say nothing of the boys and the pigs, to come in for their share; so I will forestall events a little: I will cut off the burrs when they have matured, and a few days of this dry October weather will cause every one of them to open on the ground; I shall be on hand in the nick of time to gather up my nuts."
We heard a scraping and rattling within the hollow trunk, and a moment after a dark object sprang out upon the lliana, and ran a short way downward. Another followed, and another, and another, until a string of no less than six raccoons squatted along the parasite threatening to run downward! "The scene that followed was indescribable.
The most probable explanation of the singular and apparently cruel habit of the butcher-bird is, that it merely places its victims upon the thorns, in order to keep them safe from ground-ants, rats, mice, raccoons, foxes, and other preying creatures just as a good cook would hang up her meat or game in the larder to prevent the cats from carrying it off.
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