Muskrat 547 



The main features of this agree perfectly with those of the 

 nest made in a rat-house. The stick pile over the roof shows 

 how easily one grades into the other. 



There was no dung anywhere in the dens; all was sweet 

 and clean. 



The Muskrat begins in July to get ready for the winter house 

 either by repairing the old home or beginning a new one. ing 

 George H. Measham of Woonona, Man., says he has known 

 a pair to keep the same site for years. 



When a new nest is to be made, they select a place in the 

 weeds or rushes where there is about two feet of water, and 

 begin to drag to one spot the vegetation and mud for ten feet 

 around. In this way a little island of rubbish is gradually 

 piled up, and the water around is deepened and cleared of 

 rushes, etc. As the island rises above the water level, less mud 

 and more reeds are used — this is probably unintentional — and 

 now it is made a little wider and becomes like a low haycock 

 on a small base of mud and trash. As soon as it is a few inches 

 above water, the builder begins to dig a tunnel under the level 

 through the rushes onto the surface of the mud island and 

 into the thin haycock. 



This now answers for a house, although the roof is so open 

 that the Muskrat can see out. But the process of building goes 

 on; each day a few more bundles of reeds are dragged onto the 

 pile. It grows until by August, it is perhaps 3 or 4 feet 

 high, but the mass of stuff piling on keeps crushing down the 

 roof of the centre chamber and its gallery. The builders offset 

 this by tearing off the encroaching ceiling as it gets too low. 

 In time the subsidence ceases, the floor of the chamber is now 

 covered with the reeds shredded in heightening the vault. The 

 chamber is enlarged, additional entrances are made, the chan- 

 nel to each is deepened, and the Muskrat's house, after a slow 

 growth during perhaps four months, is ready for winter. 



I cannot say that I have followed one house through all 

 these stages, but I have seen nests so obviously presenting 

 each, that I consider the process demonstrated. 



