142 NATURE STUDY. 



in more danger from traps, but the boys of his neighbor- 

 hood knew little of trapping, and he lived in peace. As 

 the days and nights grew cooler, he was impelled to change 

 his residence, Was it instinct or reason that moved him ? 

 I cannot tell, but I suspect the former had most to do with 

 the impulse. He did what his ancestors had done in times 

 of high water ever since they lost the shelter of the ark. 

 The water was getting high in his little home, and the 

 floors were continually wet. The meadow where he lived 

 was an old lake plain, now ditched and drained, with a 

 small brook flowing through the middle. A stump in the 

 widest ditch looked attractive, and there a pile of bunches 

 of water plants and grass was made. As it grew in size 

 from the nightly labor, a chamber was made near the bot- 

 tom with the entrance below the water. Day by day the 

 growing house was watched, but no workman was ever 

 seen there. Enthusiastic visitors examined it and studied 

 its exterior, but it was not disturbed. Todaj'the meadow 

 is overflowed and frozen, and boys use the hard-frozen 

 house for a seat in putting on their skates, while M. Mus- 

 quash sleeps in safety or makes excursions under the ice 

 for water weeds aud grass roots, unless he has been fright- 

 ened away by the din of civilization above him. 



The house is built high, and I am told that all such 

 houses were built high last fall. The weatherwise pre- 

 dicted therefrom a hard winter. I have an idea that it 

 was the high water in the fall, rather than a foreknowledge 

 of the winter, that caused the muskrat sky-scrapers to be 

 built. We will see. 



M. Musquash is unpopular with land owners. He digs 

 through embankments just as if they were his own and he 

 had a right to do as he pleased with them ; and he helps 

 himself to whatever he may find as nonchalantly as a bar- 

 barian. We should not forget, however, that it was not 

 very long ago that our ancestors were doing the same. 



