290 THE FUR TRADE OF AMERICA 



demand than the fur-lined ; but in Canada, not less than 2,000,000 

 muskrat furs are taken every year. In the United States the total 

 is close on 4,000,000. In one city alone, in Brooklyn, 4 million musk- 

 rat-skins are cured every year. A single stretch of good marsh 

 ground has yielded that number of skins year after year without a 

 sign of the hunt telling on the prolific little musquash. 



What is the secret of the muskrat's survival while the strong 

 creatures of the chase like buffalo and timber-wolf have been almost 

 exterminated ? In the first place, settlers can't farm swamps ; 

 so the muskrat thrives just as well in the swamps of New Jersey 

 to-day as when the first white hunter set foot in America. Then 

 musquash lives as heartily on owls and frogs and snakes as on water 

 mussels and lily-pads. If one sort of food fails, the muskrat has 

 as omnivorous powers of digestion as the bear and changes his diet. 

 Then he can hide as well in water as on land. And most important 

 of all, muskrat's family is as numerous as a cat's, five to nine rats 

 in a litter, and two or three litters a year. These are the points 

 that make for little musquash's continuance in spite of all that 

 shot and trap can do. 



Having discovered what the dank whifF, half animal, half vege- 

 table, signified, the trapper sets about .finding the colony. He 

 knows there is no risk of the little still hunter carrying alarm to 

 the other muskrats. If he waits, it is altogether probable that 

 the fleeing muskrat will come up and swim straight for the colony. 

 On the other hand, the muskrat may have scurried overland 

 through the rushes. Besides, the trapper observed tracks, 'tiny 

 leaf-like tracks as of little webbed feet, over tire soft clay of the 

 marsh bank. These will lead to the colony, so the trapper rises 

 and parting the rushes not too noisily, follows the little footprint 

 along the margin of the swamp. 



Here the track is lost at the narrow ford of an inflowing stream, 

 but across the creek lies a fallen poplar littered with — what ? 

 The feathers and bones of a dead owlet. Balancing himself — how 

 much better the moccasins cling than boots ! — the trapper crosses 



