l8o MAMMALIA. 



shelter in which it is eaten. It is quite a conspicuous object, the 

 summit projecting above the water or ice, and is therefore most 

 commonly found in places that are a little out of the beaten paths of 

 man. During the fall and winter, Muskrats speedily repair injuries 

 done to their houses. This habit is put to advantage by the trapper, 

 who, chopping a hole in the side of the hut and placing a trap in the 

 breach, often secures the entire family in the course of a few days. 

 The above remarks apply to the highest type of Muskrat architecture. 

 There are many less perfect, and at the same time less conspicuous 

 forms of these store-houses, that are to be met with in almost every 

 locality where the species exists in any numbers. Along the borders 

 of ponds and sluggish streams there often stand old hollow stumps 

 whose roots extend out under the water. Such stumps will frequently 

 be found, as cold weather approaches, stuffed full of the wads of grass 

 that are used in hut building, the angles and crevices between the 

 roots being packed with the same material. Advantage is also taken 

 of other inconspicuous places in which to deposit food, and some- 

 times, where there is no current, floating hoards of grass and roots 

 are established — veritable floating islands in miniature — in the 

 vicinity of their huts. When the ice is not too thick they generally 

 keep open a few breathing holes at certain favorite feeding grounds 

 in very shallow water, frequently covering them over with grass. 



My observation that the Muskrat, in the North, habitually lays up 

 provisions for winter's use does not accord with the statements of 

 others, the only allusion to such a habit that I have seen being con- 

 tained in the following very interesting narrative from Audubon and 

 Bachman (who, by the way, evidently considered it as exceptional): — 



" An acquaintance who had a garden in the neighborhood of a 

 meadow which contained a large number of Musk-Rats, sent one day, 

 to enquire whether we could aid in discovering the robbers who 

 carried off almost every night a quantity of turnips. We were sur- 

 prised to find on examining the premises, that the garden had been 

 plundered and nearly ruined by these Rats. There were paths ex- 



