284 MAMMALIA. 



size, and many a drowsy hunter, while floating for deer, has been 

 startled by its sudden plunge. A loud report is made by striking 

 the flat tail against the water. 



Dr. Richardson, writing in 1829, said that in the Fur Countries 

 they were " subject at uncertain intervals to a great mortality from 

 some unknown cause. Their great fecundity, however, enables them 

 to recover these losses in a very few years, although the deaths at 

 times are so numerous, that a fur-post, where the Musquash is the 

 principal return, is not unfrequently abandoned until they have re- 

 cruited." Among the foes of the Muskrat may be mentioned the 

 fox and mink, and the larger hawks and owls ; the mink and the 

 great-horned owl being its greatest enemies. 



The flesh of the Muskrat is red and rather flabby ; still it is fair 

 eating for a time when other meat is unattainable. Thomas Pennant, 

 whose notions of the causes of things were sometimes strangely 

 sophistical, mentions that the Muskrat feeds upon the sweet flag, and 

 then goes on to say : "This perhaps gives them that strong musky 

 smell these animals are so remarkable for ; which they lose during 

 winter, probably when this species of plant is not to be got." f 



Many distinguished naturalists, whose works are still regarded 

 standard, give meagre and very erroneous accounts of the habits of 

 the animals they describe. It is stated in the third volume of Griffith's 

 Cuvier, published in 1827, that Muskrats " construct in winter, on the 

 ice, a hut of clay, where they inhabit in great numbers, proceeding 

 through a hole, to seek at the bottom the roots aconis, on which they 

 subsist. When the ice closes their holes, they are reduced to feed 

 upon each other ' (p. 67). It is hardly necessary to add that the 

 above is fallacious in almost every particular. 



* Fauna Boreali Americana, Vol. I, 1829, p. 117. 

 f Arctic Zoology, Vol. I, 1792, p. 123. 



