Stránka:roll 1931.djvu/115

Handicrafts 99 of down the sides of the cylinder, there is danger of disturb- ing the impression. Let the plaster set for half an hour if possible; if you dis- turb it too. soon, it will be utterly ruined. Now, carefully remove the tin can. This gives you a negative cast. To make a positive from it, pour some liquid plaster into a small shallow box (even a pasteboard box will do). Press the negative into this, and allow it to dry. When removed, you have a cast of the track as you saw it. If a wire eyelet be slipped into a slit in the box before the plaster is poured in, it will provide a loop to hang it to the wall. Thanks are due to Miss Elizabeth Price for some sugges- tions toward this article. Black Tracks of Animals II EE2 By Ernest THOMPSON SETON During many years of observation and experiment, I tried every known way of recording animal tracks; giving much time to casts, photographs, etc. At length, I came down to two practical methods; one, familiar to all the world and still used, viz. drawing on paper, free hand, and of natural size; the other, black tracks. The latter I invented, or maybe I should say, I was taught by a Coon, who got his feet well inked, then made black coon tracks all over the bed-spread of a friend. This method is of use chiefly with captive animals, but can | to some extent be used among the wild and free. The needed materials vary somewhat with the size of the animal to be tracked. Suppose we begin as.most do, with a dog. Get a few yards of soft white paper (I commonly use the back side of wall paper, or paper toweling) ; a pot of common black paint; an old blanket and some boards. Construct a narrow passage or runway, say 10 feet long and 1 foot wide; let the dog run through this a couple of times to get used to it. Lay. the blanket smoothly down the whole length of the runway; then on that, the wall paper, fastened down in some way, such as weighing it with the boards of the runway. At one end of the runway, give the paper a heavy coat of black paint for about 4 feet, and all is ready.