200 Department of Conservation of Louisiana 



Where It Got Its Name 



The animal gains the musk part of its name from its 

 strongly developed perineal glands which secrete a powerful 

 musk which both male and female discharge in the form of 

 an odor when sexually excited. 



It was not originally called the muskrat, and even today 

 the London fur market persists in calling this fur animal 

 by its Cree Indian name of Musquash. The first published 

 description of the muskrat is to be found in "A map of 

 Virginia, with a Description of the Countrey, the Com- 

 modities, People, Government and Religion Written by 

 Captaine Smith, sometimes Governour of the Countrey." 

 The author was none other than Captain John Smith whose 

 name is so dramatically associated in early American his- 

 tory with that of the Indian maiden Pocahontas. 



The doughty captain, writing in 1612 — and the descrip- 

 tion will be found on page 14 of that historic work — said : 

 "Mussacus is a beast of the forme and nature of our water 

 Rats, but many of them smell exceedingly strong of muske." 



But where he got mussacus or why he used it is not 

 known. The probabilities are that this name was the Cree 

 Indian designation, or, at least, the captain's way of spell- 

 ing the word the savages of Virginia used in indicating this 

 animal. 



The "Musk Rat" was so named as far back as 1635. It 

 was apparently christened by one of the Jesuit fathers who 

 pursued his holy vocation in the neighborhood of Quebec. 

 While Father LeJeune appears to have been the first of 

 the early Jesuits to mention this fur animal by the name 

 which has since become its common designation, there may 

 have been others who also applied this French term to the 

 little animal. As he wrote in French, the term was Rat 

 musque, the free translation into English being the com- 

 mon name it bears today. 



From Father LeJeune's diary, for 1635, 25 we translate 

 the following : 



^Jes. Rel. 8-45. 





