Waterproof Tracks
Saturday Lucy found the yard crisscrossed with tracks. The ever-curious Lucy was soon following the tracks into the woods. In the woods she found more tracks. After nearly an hour of exploring, Lucy came running home to ask her father what animals had made the different tracks.
Elwood pulled from the shelf Tom Brown's Field Guide to Nature Observations and Tracking. Together, Elwood and Lucy flipped through the pages trying to match Lucy's descriptions to the drawings. After spending a lot of time looking at drawings, they learned that Lucy had seen some deer tracks, lots of squirrel tracks, and maybe even some fox tracks.
Elwood and Lucy had also learned that Elwood's favorite tracking guide was not the best guide for Lucy. Tom Brown's Field Guide had too many words Lucy couldn't read, and pictures that you needed the words to understand.
After lunch, Elwood and Lucy drove to the bookstore.
The clerk said she had the perfect book for Lucy, Mammal Tracks, Life-Size Tracking Guide, which since it was printed on waterproof paper, Lucy could take into the woods where she could compare the tracks in the snow to the drawings in the book.
As soon as Elwood saw Mammal Tracks he knew it would not only be a good guide for Lucy, but it was also a guide he could recommend to adults who needed a basic, easy to use informative tracking guide.
Elwood bought two copies of Mammal Tracks, one for Lucy and one for his office.
When they got home, Lucy opened Mammal Tracks to the page with fox tracks. Then she headed to the woods to see if she had seen a fox track.
Elwood settled down with his copy of Mammal Tracks. After reading about the basics of track identification, he read about the movement patterns made by walkers, trotters, waddlers, hoppers and bounders. Elwood was reading about habitat preferences when Lucy opened the back door. Pointing to a track in the center of a snow-covered page, Lucy said, "I found a track that looks just like this. It is a Red Fox!" Shaking melting snow off of the copy of Mammal Tracks Lucy had been carrying, Elwood said, "I'm glad we got you a waterproof book."
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