Alabama, Louisiana, and eastern 

 Texas where large numbers occur. 



The muskrat is seldom seen far 

 from water. Occasional animals 

 may be seen wandering in a field or 

 along the highway but this is usu- 

 ally the result of drought, flood, the 

 scarcity of food, or the breeding 

 season. Its habitat falls in three 

 natural divisions: (1) Small 

 streams, river banks, creeks, ponds, 

 lakes, and canals; (2) swamps; and 

 (3) marshes. 



In the first habitat group — rivers, 

 lakes, ponds — no one favored food 

 is abundant. The muskrats subsist 

 on a variety of succulent aquatics, 

 underground roots, and upland 

 plants obtained in their overland 

 forages. They live along water- 

 courses with their nest dens located 

 at the end of bank burrows. Such 

 fresh-water conditions are charac- 

 teristic of the group of North 

 Central States — Michigan, Illinois, 

 Ohio, Indiana, Iowa, and Wiscon- 

 sin — that forms one of our largest 

 muskrat-producing areas. 



The swamp habitat includes low, 

 timbered country, with dense 

 stands, fluctuating water levels, and 

 intermittent pools of still water — 

 the sluggish streams bordered by 

 thickets and dense stands of large 

 trees. Conditions in general are 

 poor for muskrat production, in this 

 type of habitat; and although the 

 muskrat is protected from many of 

 its enemies and escapes ready ob- 

 servation, it must depend for its 

 food supply mainly on the marsh 

 plants and limited stands of cattail 

 that occur along the edges of the 

 swamp and in the more open areas. 



The most important type of 



muskrat habitat falls under the 

 general term "marsh." Here are 

 included the extensive fresh and 

 brackish marshes of the coastal re- 

 gions and the great inland fresh- 

 water areas of cattail and river and 

 round-stemmed bulrushes. It is in 

 the vast coastal marshlands that the 

 muskrat is found in greatest num- 

 ber (fig. 5). 



Some coastal marshes are diked, 

 or enclosed with an earthen bank, 

 with sluice gates at various points 

 to permit some control of water 

 depths (fig. 6) . These marshes are 

 called banked meadows to distin- 

 guish them from wild tidal marsh. 

 When employed in muskrat produc- 

 tion, such a marsh is kept wet 

 enough to ensure a good growth of j 

 food plants. Properly flooded, I 

 diked meadows are said to produce 

 more muskrats to the acre than any 

 other type of marsh. This type of 

 marsh management is most common 

 along the New Jersey coast. 



Tidal marshes are penetrated by 

 a system of meandering rivers, 

 small ditches, creeks, "guts," and 

 numerous ponds. Most of the 

 marshes along the coast and border- 

 ing the larger bays, like the Dela- 

 ware and Chesapeake Bays, are 

 largely saline. Their vegetation 

 consists principally of big cord- 

 grass {Spa/rtina cyiiosuroides) , 

 saltmarsh cordgrass {S. altemi- 

 ■flora)^ saltmeadow grass {S. pat- 

 ens), saltgrass {Distichlis spicata), 

 and dense stands of needlerush 

 {Juncus ro erne ri anus). These 

 plants have little value as muskrat 

 food. 



Inland from the coast and bays, 

 where tidal waters and the fresh- 



