336 FOUE-FOOTED AMERICANS 



"Our nuisance animals belong to four different 

 groups, so we will begin with tlie best known, — the 

 family circle of Rats and Mice. 



" The White Lenwiinc/ comes first on my list. It is a 

 rather Avicked destroyer of grass and roots, belonging to 

 the cold north countrj^ with the Caribou, Musk Ox, and 

 Polar Bear. It furnishes many meals for the Arctic 

 Fox and the Snow}^ Owl, who evidently intend that 

 Lemmings shall not become too plenty. It is short and 

 thick-set, about the size of a Mole, with small ears, what 

 Olive calls 'pin-head' eyes, and a scrap of a tail like 

 a Rabbit. In common Avith many of the northern 

 animals it wears 'protective coloring' iu its coat, being 

 covered, feet and all, with white fur in winter, chang- 

 ing to shaded browns in summer, the season that it 

 burrows in the ground. Its winter nests are of moss 

 above ground or in little snow caves. 



"The next is that swimmiug, burrowing gnawer the 

 Muskrat^ who is every inch a rat as far down as his 

 flattened tail and scaly, webbed hind legs, wliere he sug- 

 gests tlie shape of his burrowing and mud-pie-making 

 Ijrotlier, the l^eaver. He is a heavy animal, with short 

 neck and long, sharp hind claws for digging, and fore 

 paws like hands, with four fmgers and a thumb. He 

 secretes a musky odor that gives him his name. 



" The .Muskrat is certainly the aristocrat of his family, 

 for he wears a most beautiful soft fur coat that neither 

 mud nor water can destro3^ (Your father, you remem- 

 ber, has a cap made of it. ) He liuds places suitable for 

 his home in the greater part of North America, and 

 there are few ponds and sluggish streams that do not 

 tell tales of him. He lives and finds his food in the 



