The Fur Animals of Louisiana 257 



available, however, of substantial living quarters being 

 built by the males, so size is not always a definite index as 

 to the marital status of the inhabitant. 



House building activities are very apparent. Houses 

 that have been contsructed for some time have a weather- 

 beaten appearance, while it is very easy to tell houses that 

 have had new roofs laid on them the night before owing to 

 the greenness and freshness of the muck and grasses piled 

 on top of the structure during the previous night, for house- 

 building is a nocturnal activity, as are most of the animal's 

 other habits. 



The mouth is used in transporting building material. 

 The muskrat does not use its f orf ef eet in such operations, as 

 does a beaver, although Charles Livingston Bull, the ace of 

 animal artists, for instance, has so delineated this act. The 

 building of houses calls for a great deal of tireless energy 

 when once the muskrat is animated by an ''own your own 

 home" desire. Dragging the plant, including the basal 

 parts of the stalk, a quantity of the root system to which 

 adheres a lot of marshy muck and earth, with its mouth, the 

 little animal scrambles up the side of the house, pushing and 

 tugging, arranging and rearranging the material to its lik- 

 ing with the aid of its fragile-appearing hand-like front 

 feet. 



With the structure practically completed, tunnels and 

 dive holes are excavated and from below the animal vir- 

 tually "eats" its way into the interior to fashion one or 

 more chambers, recesses, hallways or whatever one may 

 choose to call the several "rooms." In some of the chambers 

 bedding material is laid and it is here that the animal, or 

 animals, as the case may be, rests during its sleeping hours. 

 These chambers are always above water level. When there 

 are two or more chambers, they are invariably connected, 

 but, like other phases of the habits of the muskrats, there 

 are exceptions to the rule for houses with individual rooms 

 that were connected with outlet tunnels, but not with each 

 other, have been examined. 



