outdoor living » the 10 bushcraft books » tracks & lures (pt. 1)

.introduction

The signs animals leave on the ground can be more revealing than any book written by man, but unfortunately few people are able to see these signs and fewer still can read them.

To understand something of the behaviour of animals one must realise that the development of their senses is markedly different to mankind's, and therefore where we obtain information through our eyes and ears, one animal may obtain the same information through its sense of smell and another through its ability to detect temperature changes, or through vibrations.

Where man communicates with man through speech, some forms of animal life communicate through telepathy. You see this in a flock of pigeons which turn in flight as one bird.

This book broadly deals with some of these special characteristics explaining how knowledge of the 'sensitivity' of the creature is useful, and how the animal's tracks provide a reliable indicator to its habits.

The whole area covered in this book, if practised, leads to a remarkable development of one's powers of observation and deduction.

.simple deduction

To be a successful trapper you must learn first to observe, and then to make the correct deduction from your observation. For example, if you see a bird move over the ground in a series of hops it would leave tracks like these.

You agree that these would be the tracks of a hopping bird?

To know that a bird hops on the ground tells you that it is normally unaccustomed to being on the ground. This is turn leads to the conclusion that, being unaccustomed to living on the ground, it therefore does not feed on the ground. Where else then might it feed?

Your answer would be that it may find its food either in the air or on shrubs or trees.

But you observe that most birds that look for food in trees walk along the branches if they feed on fruit or flower blossoms and that the birds which feed on insects hop from branch to branch. Your final deduction is that birds which leave hopping tracks on the ground are birds which capture their food (in the form of insects) in the air, and so you make a rule, 'hopping birds are insect eaters'.

In a general way this is true, but there are exceptions to all these general rules, and not all insect eating birds are hoppers, and not all ground hopping birds are insect eaters. (Consider your pet canary or the lovely painted finches, both of which are ground hopping, and both of which are grain or seed eaters.)

Now consider tracks which look like this.

First, these are made by a bird which walks, not hops. Therefore it is accustomed to finding some, or all of its food on the ground. Being a ground feeding bird it may either -

• feed on grain or fallen fruit,
• feed on ground living creatures,
• feed on flesh which it finds on the ground.

If it feeds on grain or fallen fruit it will not have the centre toe development that would be needed by a bird which had to scratch or dig for its food, nor would it have the rear claw development required by a flesh eater.

These, therefore, are the tracks of a ground feeding bird which, not having a digging claw, nor having talons, MUST be a grain or fruit eater.

Notice the development of the centre toe, and powerful claw. This is the mark of a ground feeding bird which scratches or digs for its food. It is a ground insect eater.

Here are four short and powerful toes with strong claws particularly on the hind toe. These are the talon feet of a ground feeder which lives on flesh. The foot tracks of a hawk and eagle, or a crow.

Naturally the place where the tracks are observed has a bearing on reading the correct answer, and if the tracks are found on the edge of a swamp or marsh the answer could be quite different from the answer if the tracks were observed a long way from water.

Tracks read as those of a grain eating ground feeder in forest land could correctly be read, if the same tracks were seen in mud, or by a reedy swamp edge, as tracks of a non-swimming, flesh-eating water bird.

Tracks such as these are easily and correctly read.

The web-footed track of a swimmer such as duck, swan, or geese.

.animal tracks

In the animal kingdom the reading of tracks is equally simple. Consider these two - what is the feature you first notice?

It is the single or double thumb, the prehensile digit, which is the mark of every true tree climbing animal. Look at your own hand. Can you climb trees?

There are exceptions to this, as to the other general rules. For instance the tree climbing kangaroo of North Queensland, which has a prehensile tail. (Incidentally the domestic cat is not a true tree climber. It can 'claw' its way up a tree bill it cannot 'climb', as, say, a monkey climbs.)

In these tracks the claws of the centre toes are most prominent, and you are correct if your deduction is that these are the tracks of an earth digger, or burrower. The prehensile thumb is undeveloped, you notice.

The digging claws may be on fore or hind feet. Generally the fore feet show them most sharply, but whether on front or hind feet, they are the invariable mark of the digger.

These tracks show neither the prehensile thumb or the digging claw.

If you deduce that they are the tracks of flesh eating animals you would be correct, but why?

The answer is that the tracks show pronounced 'toes', and that toes, when not used for climbing or digging, both of which call for special development, have another special use in that they give the loot a 'springboard' when running, and so you make the deduction that these are the tracks of fast running animals, and they are not grazing animals because no grazing animal shows 'toes', unless you recognise the hoof of a cow or horse, sheep, etc., as 'tips' of toes or 'toenails', which they really are.

These tracks are made by the grass and herbage eaters. Having neither climbing thumbs, to escape from enemies by climbing, nor digging tools, to escape by burrowing, their only means of escape is by running. Therefore you may decide that animals which have cloven hoofs are very fast running.

.tracks indicate habits

Tracks made by animals on the ground, when read correctly, show the pattern of the animal's habits. This calls for continuous and careful observation. It is important to recognise the fact that animals, and all living creatures, are as much creatures of habit as human beings. A particular animal will follow the same track to and from water day after day. It will hunt in the same area continually, and only leave the area when driven out by fire, flood or drought. Even then the move is only temporary, and it will return when conditions once again are favourable.

This 'habit-forming' characteristic of animals makes it possible for the experienced trapper to predict the animal's movements, and so he selects the sites for his traps or snares, certain that they will be visited.

In the bush you will find many animal trails. These are the 'roads' of the bush creatures. They travel over them continually backwards and forwards, to and from their resting places to their feeding grounds and favourite waterholes.

By observation of the number and newness of the tracks and droppings on these trails you can gauge the extent of animal traffic.

If you put an obstacle across one of these animal trails the animals will make a detour around the obstacle, always following the line of least resistance, and come back to the road again beyond the obstacle.

A very good example of these roads are the trails radiating from a meat ants' nest. Exactly the same pattern is repeated in jungle, forest and grassland by all animals. Examine the upward side of a leaning gum tree, and if you see scratch marks of varying ages then the tree is a 'tree road' of possums or koalas, which either live in dead hollows or come to the tree nightly to feed on the young leaves or mistletoe berries. By looking up at a tree you can quickly tell if it is a feeding tree, or a living-quarters-tree. (The latter will show many dead limbs which are hollow, and therefore comfortable living quarters for possums and phalangers.)

.animal world's 10 senses

As human beings we experience five senses. These are: Sight, Sound, Touch, Taste, Smell. These senses are the result of very highly specialised cells. One group of these cells in our eyes are stimulated by light and colour. As a result we 'see'. So it is with all our other senses. As human beings our eyes tell us more than any of our other senses, and all senses are directed to one end ... LIVING. By living is meant, first the finding of food which it is safe for us to eat, and then keeping ourselves out of danger, and so keeping our race or species perpetuated.

In these end purposes of the senses the whole animal and vegetable kingdom differs in no way from us. It appears to this writer that some forms of life have developed senses which are quite beyond our human experience, and therefore rather difficult for us to understand.

The lull list of these senses (sensitivities) might be as follows:

These sensitivities vary in their development between one creature and another. Here are a few examples of their existence which you can establish for yourself.

Sight sensitivity	Sound sensitivity	Taste sensitivity
Touch sensitivity	Smell sensitivity

.temperature sensitivity

Temperature sensitivity

Temperature sensitivity can be observed if you put a leech in a screw-top covered glass jar, and cover the sides with thick paper. If you look down into the glass jar you will see the leech standing on its tail in the centre of the jar, weaving his upper end around. Put a burning stick 1' [30 cm] from one side of the jar and he will loop towards it. Move the slick to the other side and he will change direction at once.

The leech cannot smell the stick, he cannot see it, nor can he hear it, but he is so sensitive to temperature that he can feel it. Because leeches feed on the blood of animals you can understand that their 'temperature sensitivity' will lead them to sources of food.

Snakes also have a highly-developed temperature sensitivity. A snake's action of continually putting out its tongue is to guide it to warmer temperature, which to a snake may mean food (very much as if your eyes were habitually closed, but by flicking them open frequently you would be 'guided' towards light, and the light would in turn let you find food).

.vibration sensitivity

Vibration sensitivity

Vibration sensitivity seems to be most highly developed by water living creatures. It becomes evident by the actions of fish which show themselves to be attracted to the centre of small vibrations. This can be proven by throwing fine sand into still water. Small fish will instantly dart towards the sand, but if a heavy stone is thrown, they will scatter. A thread, fastened to a stone lowered beneath the water, if pulled taut, and lightly vibrated by rubbing, will also attract small fish. Cease the rubbing, which causes the vibration in the water and the fish will disperse. Rub, and they will be attracted again.

.supersonic sensitivity

Supersonic sensitivity

Throw a small pebble high into the air at dusk any summer evening, and watch its flight. Suddenly you will see a bat flash towards it, and then turn and fly away.

The bat sends out high pitched sound waves (beyond the pitch to which the human ear is tuned, but you may be fortunate enough to hear the 'Chirp' almost like a tightly strung wire being plucked). These sound waves which the bat sends out in flight rebound when they meet any obstacle, even a tiny flying insect. The bat's acute ears detect and follow the 'echo' which tells it "an insect for food is over there", and so the bat turns in its flight, all the time sending out its high-pitched sound waves, and following up the echo till it finds the insect. This is 'super-sonic sensitivity.'

No doubt the echo from the pebble becomes too strong and the flying bat sheers off to avoid a collision.

Bats, which have low power vision, can fly through a maze of crossed wires unerringly because of this supersonic sense. With fruit eating bats, or flying foxes, there appears to be an extremely acute sense of smell, and the supersonic sense does not seem to have been highly developed.

.telepathetic or 'group' sensitivity

Group sensitivity

This sense is seen when you watch a flight of birds, pigeons are particularly good examples. The flight, moving in one direction, turns, all together, and changes direction. The movement is not made by one bird who acts first as the leader but simultaneously by all the birds in the flight. The only feasible explanation is that they have a 'group sensitivity'. which, shared by all the birds in the flight, tells them to change direction.

.directional sensitivity

Directional sensitivity

Directional sensitivity is fairly well spread over the animal world. Many humans have this sense, which may have been acquired by training, but whatever the explanation they show a strongly marked sense of direction. Birds show it in their ability to 'home', and in their migratory habits. Many species of fish show it in their breeding habits, returning to spawn in the same rivers in which they themselves were hatched.

.scent sensitivity high with animals

Humans learn more through sight than through any other sense and as a result our sense of sight is more highly developed than any of our other senses.

As humans, we say, "There's a savage dog; look out he doesn't see you." This is because we think all animals like ourselves depend on sight.

The savage dog will not see you at first, but he will scent you, because his nose tells him more than his eyes. This high development of 'smell sensitivity' is more common with wild creatures than their development of sight.

It is difficult for us, as humans, to think as the wild animals think. For instance, if we saw a 'snare' or trap we would be cautious. For the trap to be effective it would have to be concealed from our sight, so that we could not see it.

An animal would smell your scent on the same trap. The sight of the trap would mean nothing to it, but the man scent attached to it, and lingering possibly for weeks after it was set up, would warn the wild animal, and your trap or snare would be quite ineffective.

Until you can realise that scent (of which you are completely unaware, because you have very poor 'smell sensitivity') tells an animal more than sight, your traps will catch nothing. This of course does not apply to all creatures. Birds and fishes are an exception, but it does apply to nearly all wild animals in their natural bush conditions.

Whilst the 'man scent' may spell 'danger' under some conditions, under other conditions where the animals have been accustomed to man and lives on his leavings (as rats, dogs and cats often do), the man scent, instead of being a warming signal, becomes a lure. Under true bush conditions, however, the 'man scent' is invariably a danger signal to all wild animals.

The man scent can be killed either by hiding it beneath a stronger smell, or by allowing it to weather off the trap, or by removing it.

To 'kill' man scent you can either use a stronger scent of which the animal will not be suspicious, or you can use a scent which for one reason or another will attract the animal to your trap or snare.

This last is called a lure.

In the bush you will find many plants whose leaves when crushed have a strong perfume. If you crush these in your hands before, during, and after you have made your trap, you will leave the scent of the leaves on the trap, and this will be so much stronger than your man scent that it will drown the latter. Of course your scent will remain all round the area, and the animal will be suspicious.