The Muskrat 89 
the hunters may secure muskrats from the same lodge 
at two or three different times during the winter. 
The greatest destruction of muskrats occurs during 
the spring freshets. Especially is this true where the 
banks of the stream are low, for in high banks the 
animals can burrow upward and so keep beyond 
the reach of high water. During the times of flood 
many are drowned in the burrows, and those that 
escape are forced to swim from shore to shore, with- 
out shelter and without food. The hunters armed 
with guns then appear upon the scene in boats. If 
a luckless muskrat escapes one hunter by diving and 
swimming, his head scarcely shows above the water 
when he is shot at by another. 
There is now no rest for the unhappy muskrats; 
every hand seems raised against them. Even the 
foxes and the minks and the great horned owls take 
advantage of their forlorn situation, and by the time 
the waters subside their number has become greatly 
reduced. I have known certain ponds, where many 
muskrat families had made their homes, to be nearly 
depopulated in one spring by reason of continued 
high water, accompanied with sleet and rain, and 
by the activity of two or three avaricious hunters. 
I myself have hunted the muskrat, but it has been 
with a harmless weapon—the camera. It is some- 
