Fur- Bearing Animals. 223 



west by natives, and traded at the Hudson's Bay Company's posts 

 for powder, shot, tobacco, etc. 



There, too, is found the inoffensive badger, whose skin is always 

 present in the fur packs at Cumberland House or at York. The 

 food of this quaint animal is partly vegetable and partly animal. It 

 is fond of snails and worms and insects. The badger is of the weasel 

 family, and is furnished with an apparatus which secretes a substance 

 of an exceedingly offensive odour, which it often emits when 

 attacked. 



It is a most curiously marked animal, its colors being grey, 

 black and white, strangely distributed. The head is white with the 

 exception of a rather broad and very definitely -marked black line 

 on each side, commencing near the snout and ending at the neck, 

 including the eye and the ear in its course. The body is of a reddish 

 grey, changing to a white-grey on the ribs and tail. The throat, 

 chest, abdomen, legs and feet are of a deep blackish brown. The 

 average length of the badger is two feet six inches, and its height 

 at the shoulder eleven inches. The skins are of a decided commercial 

 value, and are yearly secured by the Hudson's Bay Company in 

 great numbers. 



The musk-rat (Ondatra) is there, but he does not go as far north 

 as some of his neighbours. However, in many of the low, marshy 

 districts of the Churchill River they may be seen in great numbers. 

 The upper portions of its body are of a dark brown. It is tinged 

 with a reddish hue upon its neck, ribs and legs, the abdomen being 

 ashy-grey ; the tail is of the same dark hue as the body. " In total 

 length it rather exceeds two feet, of which measurement the tail 

 occupies about ten inches. The incisor teeth are bright yellow, and 

 the nails are white. The whole colouring of the animal is so wonder- 

 fully like the hue of the muddy banks on which it resides that a 

 practised naturalist has often mistaken the Ondatras for mere lumps 

 of mud until they began to move, and so dispelled the illusion. The 

 hinder feet of the Ondatra are well webbed, and their imprint on the 

 soft mud is very like that of a common duck. The food of the 

 Ondatra in a wild state appears to be almost wholly of a vegetable 

 nature, although, when confined in a cage, one of these animals has 



