CHAPTER TWENTY 



THE muskrat, occupying the position so long held by 

 the beaver, is the bulwark and mainstay of the fur 

 trade of America today and its pelt is one of the most 

 popular furs worn by women. 



This animal is exclusively North American, belonging 

 to the extensive rodent family and occurring over the 

 greater part of this continent from the northern limit of 

 trees in the Arctic regions south to the Mexican ' border. 

 Muskrats are absent from the lower Atlantic seaboard, 

 south of northern North Carolina, nor do they occur along 

 the entire Gulf region with the exception of Louisiana 

 and in a very limited section of western Mississippi and 

 eastern Texas. They are unknown on the Pacific Slope, 

 south of central Oregon, with the exception of a colony 

 that has become established in the Imperial Valley of Cali- 

 fornia due to man's irrigation activities in this once sandy 

 desert. 



In Louisiana it is an animal peculiar to our state's cir- 

 cumscribed coastal marsh area and is found here in greater 

 numbers than in any other section of North America. 



The muskrat is a small, massively built animal, with 

 a head and body attaining an average length of a little 

 more than 12 inches and a 10-inch tail. The head, which 

 is unusually wide and rounded, is not separated from the 

 body by a distinctively constricted neck, as is the case of 

 many other mammals. Its ears, which are rounded, project 



