FI15ER ZIBETHICUS. I 83 



on the southeast side of the centre of the house, this being the 

 warmest side. Acting on these discoveries, I made another trial, and 

 was successful ; and now the sport began in good earnest. When- 

 ev^er I made a thrust, I would cut a hole throu^rh the wall of the house 

 with my hatchet, and take out the game, close up the hole, and start 

 for another house. The remaining members of the family would 

 soon return, and immediately set about repairing the breach. I 

 sometimes succeeded in pinning two rats at one thrust. I also be- 

 came quite expert in taking the game in another way, as follows : 

 Whenever I made an unsuccessful thrust into a house, the rats would 

 dive into the water through their paths or run-ways, and disappear in 

 all directions. I now found I could easily drive my one tined spear 

 through the ice two inches thick, and pin a rat with considerable 

 certainty, which very much increased the sport, and I was not long 

 in securing a pile of fifteen or twenty rats. 



" Here I made a discovery of what, until now, had been a mystery 

 to me, namely, how a muskrat managed to remain so long a time in 

 the water under the ice without drowning. The muskrat, I perceiv- 

 ed, on leaving his house inhaled a full breath, and would then stay 

 under water as lono- as he could without breathinof ; when he would 

 rise up with his nose against the ice, and breathe out his breath, 

 which seemed to displace the water, forming a bubble. I could dis- 

 tinctly see him breathe his bubble in and out several times, and then 

 dive again. In this way I have chased them about under the ice for 

 some time before capturing them. 



" As I frequently speared the muskrat on his feeding-bed, and 

 subsequently found it to be the best and surest place to set a trap for 

 him, I will, for the benefit of the novice, undertake to describe one 

 as found in the marshes. A feeding-bed is a place where the musk- 

 rat goes to feed, generally at night, and is frequently many rods from 

 his house. Here he selects a place where his food is convenient, 

 and by the aid of the refuse material of the roots, &:c., which he 

 carries here for food, he elevates himself partly out of water, in a sort 



