214 Department of Conservation of Louisiana 



feeding for themselves off the tender roots of three- 

 cornered grasses, although our field biologist fed them on 

 such artificial foods as rolled oats and corn. One trapper in 

 February, 1927, fed two captive "blind" mice on sweet po- 

 tatoes four days before their eyes opened. They were re- 

 leased a few weeks later. 



Just how many young the Louisiana muskrat has in a 

 litter is as moot a question in our part of the continent as 

 it is in the more northern sections. It is a fact that has 

 never been definitely fixed by any who have written on the 

 muskrat. As has been pointed out by Dr. Charles E. John- 

 son, 1 ' the most reliable data as to the number of young 

 produced at a time are furnished by records of embryos 

 contained in the uterine horns, but the same author wisely 

 points out that the number of intra-uterine young in some 

 species of mammals may exceed the number of young found 

 in a nest, as in the wilds there is a toll taken of all young, 

 this being unvaryingly true of those animals producing 

 large litters. 



Seton 34 estimates the number of young from 4 to 9 in 

 Manitoba, while Jackson, 35 in the same province, gives the 

 average as 5 young. Dixon 30 averages the young of the 

 California Imperial Valley muskrat at 6, with 3 and 9 as 

 extremes. Johnson says trappers give 5 to 7 and 5 to 9 

 to a litter in New York and quotes one trapper as finding 

 11 embryos in a trapped female. Vernon Bailey found a 

 muskrat in Montana with 13 large fetuses, and Warren in 

 Colorado shows 8 embryos in a specimen he captured. 



A typical day's catch of muskrats in Louisiana marshes, 

 with the number of mice, kits, damaged, females with and 

 without young, taken is shown in the following table, fur- 

 nished by Alfred Stark, in charge of one of the trapping- 

 camps. It shows the percentage of females in a breeding 

 condition that may be expected in a catch of muskrats dur- 

 ing this part of January. 



•''•''Johnson, The Muskrat in New York, p. 227. 

 "Seton, Lift Histories of Northern Animals, "p. 550. 



Jackson, Rai Ranching in Manitoba, p. 2. 

 ' I'iM.n. Rodertts and Reclamation of Imperial Valley, Journal of Mam- 

 malogy, vol. 3, p. 141. 



