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or two of mussels. On September 22, 1907, a man was seen at the 

 south end of the lake with about a peck of shells which he had opened 

 in a vain search for pearls; on October 8 of the same year, a pile of 

 about a half bushel of shells, which had evidently been opened by 

 pearlers, was found in Overmyer's woods. Another pearler was seen 

 in 1907 who had collected a few slugs of almost no value. One of the 

 citizens of Culver, in 1906, submitted a small vial of lake bai-oques for 

 valuation, but they had no worth whatever. The greatest enemy of the 

 lake mussels is the muskrat, and its depredations are for the most part 

 confined to the mussels near shore. The muskrat does not usually 

 begin its mussel diet until rather late in autumn, when much of the 

 succulent vegetation upon which it feeds has been cut down by the 

 frost. Some autumns, however, they begin much earlier than others; 

 a scarcity of vegetation or an abundance of old muskrats may have 

 much to do with this. The rodent usually chooses for its feeding 

 grounds some object projecting out above the water, such as a pier or 

 the top of a fallen tree. Near or under such objects one occasionally 

 finds large piles of shells. The muskrat apparently has no especial 

 preference for one species of mussel above another, but naturally sub- 

 sists most freely on the most abundant species. These shell piles are 

 excellent places to search for the rarer shells of the lake. 



On September 24, 1907, about a bushel of shells, recently cleaned 

 out by muskrats, was found at Long Point where a pier had been 

 removed not long before. The shells were all of rather small size and 

 were in about 18 inches of water. About half were taken and examined. 

 Of these shells, 358 were Lavipsilis luteola, 167 Unio gibbosus, 6 Lamp- 

 silis iris and 1 Lampsilis multiradiata. In the autumn of 1913 freshly 

 opened shells of Lampsilis glans were common along shore at Long 

 Point. The first shells killed are rather small and are probably killed 

 by young muskrats. 



In the winter after the lake is frozen, great cracks in the ice ex- 

 tend out from shore in various directions, and this enables the muskrat 

 to extend his depredations some distance from shore in definite limited 

 directions. During the winter of 1904 a muskrat was observed feeding 

 on mussels along the broad ice-ci'ack that extended from the end of 

 Long Point northeastward across the lake. The muskrat was about 

 fifty feet from the shore. It repeatedly dived from the edge of the ice- 



