Wben Grass id Green 



bladderwort, but with no tiny fishes, tadpoles, or 

 mosquito larvae in the utricles. I did see a poor 

 turtle that some infra-crystic disaster had ousted 

 from his winter quarters, and a few slowly moving 

 fishes. Here was indeed enough to have kept me 

 all day abroad, but I had a settled purpose when 

 I started, and that was to visit the huge domed 

 muskrat house, a miniature haystack, that pro- 

 jected nearly four feet above the ice. The occu- 

 pants built it as long ago as last November, but 

 until now I could not get very near it. It was 

 made of short sticks and masses of frost-bitten 

 vegetation taken directly from the marsh, and as 

 nearly as I could determine was some ten feet in 

 diameter at the base and about five feet high. 

 There were no signs of the muskrats, of course, 

 and I did not let my idle curiosity go so far as to 

 break open the roof to catch a glimpse possibly of 

 its tenants. Not far off were three others of these 

 houses, but none so large. 



Muskrat houses figure in folk-lore, and I have 

 been told again and again that when they are 

 built it means a hard winter, and vice versa. My 

 own experience, to date, leads me to conclude 

 that a very wet autumn and high water leads to 

 their construction, and they are not made when the 

 weather is warm and the marshes comparatively 

 dry ; but I doubt if there is any rule in the matter, 

 and others who have made continued observations 

 may have reached quite different conclusions. 

 87 



