496 



BULLETIN 56, UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUM. 



while sitting quietly fisliing on the river bank, a couple of muskrats 

 were seen swimming toward me. I remained quiet, and one of them 

 swam up to within a few feet of me, and, after diving several times, 

 secured the root it wanted and then climbed out upon the bank within 

 5 or 6 yards of me and proceeded to devour it quite at leisure, 

 although it cast an occasional furtive glance in mj direction. On 



August 31, 1884, a muskrat also made bold 

 to share our piscatorial sport and swam 

 quietly about the stream, occasionally com- 

 ing out upon a log to eat the fish it caught. 

 On June 15, 1885, one was seen eating grass 

 in shallow water. When shot, its mouth 

 and stomach contained grass. In the clear 

 water of Beaver Creek I sometimes saw them 

 plunge into the water and watch me from 

 beneath the surface. Wlien walking down 

 this stream in the twilight, September 17, 

 1885, I shot a muskrat swimming toward me. 

 The muskrat is eaten by the Hualpai 

 Indians, who call it kJiu-to, and by the Hopi, 

 who know it by the name of pom'-we. Its 

 bones were plentiful in the ruined buildings 

 and caves of the extinct cliff dwellers. 



We obtained no specimens along the Mexi- 

 can Boundary, but I saw two muskrats in 

 the collection of Col. R. F. Hafford in 1892 

 whicli were taken in the San Pedro River, 

 Cochise County, Arizona. We saw no signs 

 of muskrats on the Gila River at Adonde 

 when camped there in February, 1894. Two 

 trappers whom I met at Yuma, Arizona, in 

 March, 1894, had just finished trapping the 

 Arizona portion of the Gila River without 

 meeting with either muskrat or otter, and we 

 had seen no sign of either in our then recent 

 exploration of the lowest part of the Gila. 

 Yuma Indians reported the abundance of 

 muskrats along the Colorado River, but we 

 failed to find them, although I saw some of 

 their tracks at El Rio, on the California side. Near Seven Wells, 

 on Salton River, Lower California, in a hole at the edge of the 

 water I saw something which was supposed to be a muskrat ; but I did 

 not see it plainly enough to be certain that it was one, although piles 

 of fresh-water mussel shells, such as they accumulate about their fish- 

 ing places, were found, making it probable that muskrats lived there 

 On the shores of a good-sized lagoon, near Gardners Station, on the 



Fig. 124.— Tail of Fiber zibe- 



THICUS. a, LATERAL VIEW; 6 

 DORSAL VIEW. 



