Rural School Leaflet 877 



The Muskrat. — The muskrat is two feet long, its color a rich dark 

 brown above, grayish below, with the sides and belly tinged with rust color. 

 The body is thickset, the legs short, the tail scaly, nearly naked, and 

 flattened laterally. The fur is thick with woolly underfur. The skins 

 supply a very good quality of fur. 



Muskrats live in water and on its banks, except in the early fall when they 

 may wander several miles from their accustomed habitat. They are 

 excellent swimmers and divers. They build elaborate homes and seldom 

 travel more than 200 yards from them. In their travels the tail trail 

 makes their tracks conspicuous. The footprints are arranged in a zigzag 

 line, with the toes quite distinct. When the animals are alarmed, the 

 footprints are in a pattern something like those of the rabbit. 



The homes of muskrats are of two kinds, huts and burrows. The huts 

 are used in winter, the burrows at all times. The entrance to the biirrow 

 is below the water level and from this a path leads upward to the den, some 

 distance inland and often very near the surface. Several galleries may 

 lead away from this chamber and there m.ay be several passages leading 

 to it. It is by the caving in of these burrows that the damage is done to 

 fields, dams, and levees. The muskrat hut is started in the water, where 

 a small " haycock " of vegetation and mud is piled up. The top is well 

 out of water and contains an air chamber, from which one or more 

 pathways lead downward. This dome is built largely of plant stems and 

 roots that the animal will eat in winter. During the winter the muskrats 

 are very active, swimming around, coming to the edge where there is air 

 space to breathe, or, when the ice is close to water, merely rising to the 

 surface, exhaling their bubble of air against the ice and then taking it 

 again refreshed by contact with the freezing water. Throughovit the year 

 they live largely on marsh grasses and aquatic plants, but occasionally 

 they eat fish and water mussels also. 



Although these animals are so diligently hunted and trapped, their 

 number is maintained because they are so prolific. Five to nine young 

 are born at a time, and they are said to raise three litters a season, the 

 young maturing very rapidly. 



The mink and the great homed owl are the worst natural enemies of 



the muskrat. 



" In the fall of 1878 I observed that the muskrats built unusually high and massive nests. 

 The builders worked only at night, and I could see each day thattheworkhadvisihly advanced. 

 The houses were placed a little to one side of the main channel, and were constructed etitirely 

 of a species of coarse wild grass that grew all about. So far as I could see, from first to last 

 they were solid masses of grass, as if the interior cavity or nest was to be excavated afterward, 

 as doubtless it was. As they emerged from the pond they gradually assumed the shape of 

 a miniature mountain, very bold and steep on the south side, and running down to a long 

 gentle grade to the surface of the water on the north. One could see that the little architect 

 hauled all his material up this easy slope, and thrust it out bcldly around the other side. 

 Every mouthful was distinctly defined."^ JOHN BURROUGHS 



