298 BULLETIN OF The united states fish commission. 



He further stated that the musk-rat is very destructive to nets, destroy- 

 iug the fishermen's tykes iu scores by entering them in quest of fish and 

 then tearing the nets in order to escaj)e. 



Dr. A. K. Fisher said that at Sing Sing, N, Y., he had often known 

 musk-rats to enter fykes, sometimes drowning, but oftener escaping by 

 gnawing the meshes, thus doing considerable injury to the nets. He 

 supposed they entered the nets because placed in their line of travel. He 

 further stated that he knew that fykes made of fine wire were used with 

 success iu capturing these animals. 



Mr, William H. Dall, the well-known Alaskan explorer, now of the 

 Coast Survey, kindly favors me with the following: "In July, 1863, I 

 visited Kankakee, 111., on a collecting tour for river mollusks. You 

 know how musk-rats throw up mounds of the shells they dig out. I ex- 

 amined many of these for unios, &c. On several I saw the skeletons 

 of fish (chiefly suckers, I believe), partly or wholly denuded of their 

 flesh, aud showing the marks of musk-rat, or, at least, rodent teeth. I 

 also saw the shell of a common mud-turtle so gnawed and in the same 

 situation. I did not see the animal in the act of feasting, which, I be- 

 lieve, is done chiefly at night ; but I have no doubt that the fish and 

 turtle were eaten by the musk-rat as well as the mollusks associated 

 with them in the same pile." 



Under date of March 5, 1884, I received from Dr. Fisher the most 

 valuable record yet obtained concerning the habit in question. Dr. 

 Fisher writes: "A few days since two young men were fishing through 

 the ice for pickerel, with live bait, at Croton Lake, Westchester County, 

 New York. Several times they were troubled by having one of the lines 

 pulled violently off the bush and run out to its full length. Finally 

 they saw the line start again, and pulling it up quickly they landed a 

 large musk-rat on the ice." 



Here is an authentic instance, not of a musk-rat eating dead fish on 

 the bank, but of actually capturing a live fish in the water under the 

 ice. Fortunately the fish was attached to a hook and line, and the 

 musk-rat was caught and killed. 



In the year 1820 there appeared in a New York newspaper (The States- 

 man) a series of articles entitled " Letters on the Natural History and 

 Internal Eesources of the State of New York, by Hibernicus." They 

 were reprinted in book form in 1822. Their real author was Governor De 

 Witt Clinton, a man of letters, eminent as a statesman, distinguished 

 as a scientist, aud justly celebrated as a philosopher. In the ninth let- 

 ter he speaks of the musk-rat as the most formidable foe of the canal, 

 stating that it perforates the banks and thus lets off the water. Ees- 

 pecting this animal as a fish eater, he says : " In winter, when the water 

 is frozen, musk-rats go under the ice and prey on the fish. They are 

 very destructive to trout, which is already iu the canal." 



Locust Grove, N. Y., March 29, 1884. 



