Rensselaer Republican, Volume 19, Number 31, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 7 April 1887 — Habits of the Coon. [ARTICLE]

Habits of the Coon.

the female coon is social and domestic in her habits, the male is quite the reverse, says the New York Sun. He is surly and solitary, ranges entirely alone, and gives no care or attention to family matters. If two males meet in the woods or in the field they tight furiously, and not infrequently to the death. An old Jersey coon hunter tells how he once surprised two male coons fighting in a corn field. They were so frantically in earnest that they flew at each other even after the dogs had jumped upon them. In the spring and' summer the margins of brqoks and ponds, and the Boft mud in swamps and bays in every coon country, are always thickly indented with the graceful footprints of the coon, for in those months he spends his nights in catching frogs, fish, lizards, grubs and mussels, which are then his chief subsistence. Later on he ranges along the huckleberry and blackberry patches, and feasts on their fruit. With the con ing of the milk in the green corn comes the coon’s gala time, for he loves the tender, succulent grains, as the farmer knows to his sorrow, and great are the risks he will take to forage in the fields. It is not until the berries are gone and the corn has grown tough iu the ear that the coon begins to look about for his winter stores. These he lays by plentifully, from the beechnut, chestnut, and . acorn .crops, and cfn these crops depends the hunting of the coon when he is at his best. During the nutting season he is fat and solid and wide-awake, provided that nuts are plentiful. When the coon grows inordinately fat and large he lessens his chances of falling a victim to the hunter, for then he ventures but a short distance from,his hiding-place and gives the dog small opportunity for finding his tio.iL Even in the days when coon-hunting was a science it was rare that a coon weighing over twenty pounds was ever bagged, although they have been known to attain a we ght of forty -pounds. A coon at that weight, however, must have been simply a ball of fat, and but little would have been left of him but bones and gravy after cooking. If the nut crop i 3 a failure the coon goes to his winter quarters thin and iniserable, and poorly prepared for the long winter’s sleep and fast. It is in 'seasons of such straights that the coofi wanders forth* on every day of thaw, although the snow may be deep on the ground, in search of such fag ends of provender as may fall to his lot. At such times the unfortunate coon may be seen hovering, wan and haggard, on the edges of farms and door-yards, waiting for an opportunity to pick up scraps from the kitchen, poultry yard, or pig-stv. One peculiarity of the coon which, by the way, is the cleanest of animals, and, as has been seen, eats only the most wholesome of food, and one which does not seem to have attracted the attention of the book naturalists, is that he never touches food until he has quaffed at some spring or brook, even if he is compe led to go far to find one. Old coon-hunters say that the coon dips every mouthful of his food in water before eating it; but, like all hunters, old coon-hunters say many things it would bother them like smoke to prove.