BULLETIN OF TSE UNITED STATES ElSH COMMISSION. 295 



medium-sized snake devours 40 jouug carp per day, for they digest very 

 quickly. That would make for 225 snakes 9,000 carp per day, and 

 03,000 per week. That number is correct, sir ! and it shows that snakes 

 are more injurious than cranes, herons, and other birds. 



I kill them by shooting, oftentimes seeing only a small part of the 

 head in the water, or hiding beneath water-plants. I have had oppor- 

 tunity to see how they catch the young fish, and how they devour them. 

 An old wall constitutes their best hiding-place. I often shoot them 

 sitting in the cracks of the old wall, the head looking outside, watching 

 the poor little fishes. 



United States Carp Ponds, August 12, 1883. 



August 15 and 16, I did not kill any snakes, by reason of the low 

 temperature and rain. On the following days I killed, 72: August 17 

 52 ; August 18, 7 ; August 19, 8; August 20, 5. 

  United States Cakp Ponds, August 20, 1883. 



The snakes, so numerous in the ponds for some time past, have almost 

 wholly disappeared. During the past five days I shot only 3, though 

 watching closely for them. Since July 1 we have killed, over 900, mostly 

 by shooting. 



United States Carp Ponds, August 26, 1883. 



During the past week I killed about 150 snakes in the west pond. 

 To-day I killed 19. All had young carp in their stomachs. 



United States Cakp Ponds, Septemler 25, 1883. 



156 WHAT ITIIJSK-RAT!« SOITIETIITIES EAT. 



By CIIARI.es CARPENTER. 



LFrom a letter to Prof. S. F. Baird.] 



An old. trapper, who trapped for years in the marshes of Sandusky 

 Bay, tells me that musk-rats usually live on the roots and tops of water- 

 plants, but in severe winters, when tlie water freezes deep, they do eat 

 fish. 



The winter of 1842 and 1843 I spent on Put-in Bay Island (South 

 Bass Isl.). I trapped and speared a little. It was a severe winter. The 

 shallow water froze to the bottom, and on opening some houses, I found 

 half-eaten fish in them, which, I think, were black bass. In one house 

 I found the remains of two fish of good size. 



A few years ago I saw a musk-rat on the ice before my house, and on 

 looking at him with a sjjy-glass, saw he had a large fresh-water clam 

 which he was trying to open. Mr. S. G. Goodrich in his Animal King- 

 dom, page 483, says, " In winter, when hard pressed, they sometimes 

 devour each other, and when one is wounded the others eat him." 



Kelley's Island, Ohio, January 29, 1884. 



