400 Department of Conservation of Louisiana 



other companies put on, that selected lots are placed on 

 the block as "Extra Large and Large No. l's," etc., still the 

 Louisiana trapper never sells his catch in this manner, but 

 confines his trading to Tops, Mediums, Seconds, Flats and 

 Kits and Damaged, or sells his entire catch to the fur buyer 

 at so much a "'round'' or "by the nose," as the expressions 

 go, when a sale is consummated by the trapper receiving, 

 say, $1.05 each for every muskrat in his collection and no 

 attempt is made to grade the catch. 



A muskrat to be graded a "Top" must be prime of pelt, 

 of good size, heavily furred and of good color as to fur. 

 Little attention is paid, as a rule, to the color of the belly. 



A "Medium" will have to grade very much like a "Top," 

 but will not come up to the higher priced skin as to size. 



A muskrat "Second" is usually a skin with an unprime 

 pelt, or it may be a prime pelt having a lack of dense fur, 

 or the guard hairs may lack "life" or be noticeably rubbed. 



When the muskrat skin is termed a "Flat" it is because 

 it is so lacking in underfur as to feel flat when the fingers 

 are passed over the pelage, or it may also be deficient in 

 guard hairs, and the pelt denotes its unprime condition. A 

 flat usually proves to be a skin taken from an animal 

 trapped so early in the season that its winter pelage has 

 not had time to develop, but which, if it were taken in the 

 middle of winter, would have become a Top and would have 

 been worth double the amount received for it as a Flat. 



"Kits" and "Damaged" denote a collection of muskrat 

 skins taken from half -grown animals (the word being de- 

 rived and shortened from the term "Kitten," such as ap- 

 plied to the young of domestic cats), while the "Damaged" 

 term is applied to all classes of skins that have been dam- 

 aged by knives when skinned, by hawks, blackbirds, other 

 muskrats, while held fast in the traps before the trapper 

 markes his round to collect his catch of the night before. 

 "Mice" or baby muskrats frequently are taken in the traps 

 and such skins are placed in the "Kits" and "Damaged" 

 collection. 



When a trapper finds a large percentage of kits and 

 mice in his traps it is invariably an indication that his area 

 is being trapped too hard, or that he is placing his traps 



