50 THE CANADIAN NATURALIST. [Feb- 



The water, alive with fish of many species (permanent resi- 

 dents), becomes during ' the season ' crowded with lordly salmon 

 like a fashionable watering-place ; thus affording a perpetual 

 banquet to birds that devour fishes. The tempting, juicy mol- 

 lusks, " like turtle," seem palateable to all, be the diners scale-clad 

 or feathered. On one side of this lake is a swamp, in which are 

 numerous pools, some of them deep in the middle, shoal at the 

 sides to a few inches, all alike fringed with a tall growth of rushes. 

 In these aquatic snuggeries, ducks, literally swarm thick as bees 

 round thorn-blossoms. Here, too, musk-rat houses may be likened 

 to cities rather than villages ; the inhabitants — swimming idly 

 about, just diving out of the way i£ I came too near, reappearing 

 a short distance off — evidently deemed me an impudent intruder. 



For years I have been in the habit of seeing these rush houses 

 (which I shall presently describe), but took it for granted there 

 existed but one species of musk-rat, whose winter quarters was the 

 rush house ; its summer residence a tunnel excavated in a mud 

 bank. Sir John Richardson (Fa, Bo. Am.), after describing the 

 1 winter huts,' goes on to say, " In summer the musquash burrows 

 in the banks of the lakes, making branched canals many yards in 

 extent, and forming its nest in a chamber at the extremity, in 

 which the young are brought forth." Another author writes, 

 " They live in curiously-constructed huts, in a social state during 

 winter ; in summer, these creatures wander about in pairs, feed- 

 ing voraciously on herbs and roots." Charlevoix adds, " They 

 build cabins, nearly in the form of those of the Beaver, but far 

 from being so well executed ; their place of abode is always by 

 the waterside, so that they have no need to build causeways." 

 Captain John Smith was in all probability the first who gave 

 any account of the musquash, in a work published in the year 

 1624. He says, " The musascus is a beast of the form and nature 

 of a water-rat, but many of them smell exceedingly strong of musk." 

 " We are not, however, aware that these nests are made use of 

 by the musk-rat in spring for the purpose of rearing its young ; 

 we believe these animals always for that purpose resort to holes in 

 the sides of ponds, sluggish streams, or dykes." — Aud. and Bach. 



Seated on a sandy knoll, I contemplated, measured, and began 

 to skin my prize. It occurred to me that there were no mud 

 banks near, into which these rats could burrow, and according to 

 the statement of the authorities, at this very time, they ought to 

 have been in their summer holes. 



