1866.] LORD — MUSK-RATS AS BUILDERS. 55 



can be obtained, and rather enjoy at times doing the cannibal. 

 It is no infrequent occurrence for a hungry band to set upon their 

 relative when fast by the legs in a trap, tear it to pieces, then 

 devour the fragments as hounds are wont to rend and eat a fox. 

 Sir J. Richardson tells us they have been known to eat one another 

 in their houses, if unusually hungry, a statement I can quite 

 believe, although it has never been my good or ill fortune to wit- 

 ness a musquash famine. I have often shot a duck that has fallen 

 into the centre of a musk-rat pond ; waiting and wishing for a 

 friendly breeze to waft the prize ashore, I observe it moves slowly, 

 propelled by some unseen power, it nears a rush-house, bobs and 

 bobs like a float as a fish tugs impatiently at the bait, then sud- 

 denly disappears. Musk-rats are the thieves that dine sumptuously 

 at my expense. River mussels and craw-fish are also largely con- 

 sumed by the musk-rats. They either crack the shells of the 

 Unios with their strong teeth, or, taking them on the land, let 

 them remain until, panting for air, the shells are opened, when 

 the rat pounces in and devours the inmates. Not only are mussels 

 eaten, but all fresh-water mollusks share a like fate, if discovered 

 by prowling musk-rats. 



It may be as well to say a few words, in conclusion, about their 

 systems of building. The rush-houses are built in from three to 

 four feet water. A solid pier, composed of sticks, rushes, grass, 

 mud and small stones, is raised from the bottom to a height of 

 some inches above the surface ; over this the dome-shaped roof is 

 thrown, made of intertwined rushes with mud and sticks worked 

 in amongst them ; the bed is placed on the centre or pier, and the 

 entrance is invariably beneath the surface of the water. I do not 

 believe this dome is in any degree impervious to water ; whenever 

 I have opened a house in summer, it has invariably been wet ; 

 and during blazing hot weather it must be a great advantage to 

 the rush-rats, assisting to keep them cool — an advantage equally 

 enjoyed by the ' miners,' whose houses are always wet in summer. 

 In winter the water freezes, and hence cannot wet the insides of the 

 domes or mud galleries. The grass and other material carried in 

 for the winter bed must manifestly get wet in the transport, but 

 rapidly drains and dries when the water solidifies. I do not 

 believe in the possibility of an animal formed as the musk-rat 

 making a waterproof fabric out of rushes and mud. One thing 

 has always puzzled me in their engineering : how they manage to 

 keep down the materials forming the centre or pillar, preventing 



