WILD LIFE OF ORCHARD AND FIELD, 



manner was that wonderful man Thoreau, who 

 makes the following note in his diary under April 

 8, 1854 : "At Nut Meadow Brook I saw, or rather 

 heard, a muskrat plunge into the brook before me, 

 and saw him endeavoring in vain to bury himself 

 in the sandy bottom. Looking like an amphibious 

 animal, I stooped and, taking him by the tail, 

 which projected, tossed him ashore." 



That was a trick the sage of Walden seems to 

 have been fond of, for we read that once he served 

 a woodchuck in the same way. 



In addition to the snug all-the-year-round home, 

 the muskrat usually makes for himself a winter 

 lodge and storehouse combined. The burrow can 

 be found ordinarily only by searching for it, trac- 

 ing the subaqueous flight of the owner by the 

 line of bubbles that rise as he speeds towards his 

 shelter, or by falling into it when the roof is thin as 

 you stroll along the bank. But the winter lodges 

 are conspicuous, dotting the frozen marshes like 

 miniature haystacks, sometimes six feet high — 

 a vast heap of doing for a small diameter of being, 

 as Thoreau piousl}^ observed. Tliey are composed 

 of whatever grows or lies nearest — sticks, reeds, 

 weeds, grass, etc. — and may be entangled among 

 swamp brush or firmly set upon a foundation 



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