162 MAMMALIA. 



passing near a mill-pond, inhabited by some families of Musk-Rats, 

 we observed numbers of them swimming about in every direction, 

 carrying mouthfuls of withered grasses, and building their huts higher 

 on the land than any we had seen before. We had scarcely ever 

 observed them in this locality in the middle of the day, and then only 

 for a moment as they swam from one side of the pond to the other ; 

 but now they seemed bent on preparing for some approaching event, 

 and the successive reports of several guns fired by some hunters, 

 only produced a pause in their operations for five or ten minutes. 

 Although the day was bright and fair, on that very night there fell 

 torrents of rain succeeded by an unusual freshet, and intensely cold 

 weather." '•' 



Spearing the Muskrat in their huts, in the early winter, is an ex- 

 citing and sometimes profitable occupation. The best account of 

 this mode of hunting which I have seen is from the pen of Henry 

 Thacker, who thus graphically describes his excursions to a large 

 marsh in the vicinity of Chicago in the winter of 1844-45 : — 



" With feelings of interest and excitement, I marched up to a large 

 house very cautiously (for, with the least jar or crack of the ice, 

 away goes your game), and, with uplifted spear, made ready for a 

 thrust. I hesitated. There was a difficulty I had not taken into 

 account ; I knew not where to strike. The chances of missing the 

 game were apparent, but there was no time to be lost ; so bang ! 

 went the spear into a hard, frozen mass, penetrating it not more than 

 three or four inches, and away went the game in every direction^ 

 With feelings of some chagrin I withdrew my spear, and began feel- 

 ing about for a more vulnerable spot, which I was not long in de- 

 tecting. It being a cold, freezing day, I discovered an accumulation 

 of white frost on a certain spot of the house, and putting my spear 

 on the place I found it readily entered. The mystery was solved at 

 once ; this frost on the outside of the house was caused by the breath 

 and heat of the animals immediately beneath it, and it was generally 



* Quadrupeds of North America, Vol. I, 1846, pp. 122-123. 



