MUSQUASH THE MUSK RAT 227 



Canada sent out only 17,000 or 20,000 skins a year. 

 So rapidly did musk-rat grow in favour as a lining and 

 imitation fur that in 1888 it was no unusual thing for 

 200,000 musk-rat-skins to be brought to a single Hud 

 son s Bay Company fort. In Canada the climate com 

 pels the use of heavier furs than in the United States, 

 so that the all-fur coat is in greater demand than the 

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

 rat furs are taken every year. In the United States 

 the total is close on 4,000,000. In one city alone, St. 

 Paul, 50,000 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. Multiply 

 50,000 by prices varying from 7 cents to 75 cents and 

 the value of the musk-rat-hunt becomes apparent. 



What is the secret of the musk-rat s survival while 

 the strong creatures of the chase like buffalo and tim 

 ber-wolf have been almost exterminated? In the first 

 place, settlers can t farm swamps; so the musk-rat 

 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 musk-rat 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 im 

 portant of all, musk-rat s family is as numerous as a 

 cat s, five to nine rats in a litter, and two or three lit 

 ters 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 ani- 



