80 ANIMAL COMPETITORS 



also a good flesh-food which is not utilized to 

 the extent it deserves. 



Excellence of muskrat flesh. The Indian 

 aborigines habitually ate this flesh, especially 

 in winter, and taught the colonists how to cook 

 it, boiled with corn, into a toothsome dish. The 

 early western hunters and explorers were glad 

 to get it, liking it roasted over a slow fire. 

 Lantz tells us that in the retail markets of 

 Philadelphia, Baltimore, Wilmington and other 

 cities, these animals are sold as " marsh rab- 

 bits," but no attempt is made to conceal the 

 fact that they are muskrats. 



"They are bought and eaten both by well-to-do 

 citizens and by the poorer people who seldom indulge 

 in high-priced game. The animals are trapped pri- 

 marily for their pelts, but after they are skinned, 

 the additional labor of preparing the meat for mar- 

 ket is so slight that they can be sold very cheaply. 



"In the Baltimore markets, February 21, 1908, I 

 found muskrats for sale at various stalls. The retail 

 price was 10 cents each. At the commission houses 

 I learned that several firms receive them regularly 

 from the lower Chesapeake. . . . 



"In February, 1907, the Philadelphia Record 

 stated that a single dealer on Dock street in that city 

 sold about 3,000 muskrats a week for food. The chief 



