22 THE TRIBES ON MY FRONTIER. 



represented than this poor creature. It is not a rat at all, 

 neither Mus this nor Mus that, but Sorex coerulescens, which 

 means the heavenly shrew. And, if it is not a rat in name, 

 it is still less that villainous thing in nature. It wants none 

 of your provisions, and wanton destruction is not in all its 

 thoughts ; its sole purpose in the house is a friendly one, 

 videlicet, to hunt the loathsome cockroach and the pestiferous 

 beetle. It is charged with diffusing an unpleasant odour, 

 and there is undoubtedly some truth in this ; it can be very 

 unsavoury at times. But that is not its normal state ; it is 

 the fruit of vexation of spirit. An unpersecuted musk-rat 

 is most inoffensive. In short, that quality which brings the 

 meek little animal into such bad odour, so to speak, is the 

 defensive armour with which Nature has provided it, and 

 every time you hunt a musk-rat you justify the provision. 

 Lastly, one small fault may well be overlooked in view of 

 the many amiable virtues that adorn its character. While 

 the rat, after a night of crime, spends the c'ay in a san- 

 guinary fracas with its own brothers in the ceiling, and the 

 mother squirrel has to retire into the woods and bring up 

 her family in secret, lest their own papa should eat them, 

 the days of the heavenly shrew are passed in sweet domes- 

 tic harmony. As night comes on, the pair venture out of 



