Muskrat 
The muskrat, on the contrary, quickly learned to profit by 
the settlement of the country and the consequent thinning of his 
natural enemies, and though hunted and trapped persistently for 
several months in the year, still refuses to be driven away, and 
may be found in colonies perfectly undisturbed by the jarring 
racket of a sawmill or the smoke of a factory chimney, evi- 
dently willing to put up with some of the nuisances of civili- 
zation, in order to take advantage of the ponds dammed back 
by man for his own personal use, and which, unlike the beaver, 
the muskrat has apparently never learned to make for himself. 
The adobe cabins of the muskrat are, however, very similar 
and often practically identical except in dimensions to those of 
the beaver. When in the late fall the long cold nights and in- 
creasing cloudiness foretell the coming snows and_ice-locked 
streams of winter, the muskrats erect these lodges to serve both 
as living rooms and as air chambers to which they may bring 
the freshwater clams and lily roots that they dig up from the 
bottom when working at a distance from their burrows in the 
bank. If possible, they prefer to begin the work when the water 
is not very high. 
On flat grassy reaches half overflowed they dig up sods, the 
size of a man’s fist, sometimes arranging them in a little circle 
to hold back the water while they are at work inside, sinking 
a shallow well down into what will be the bed of the stream 
when the water gets higher. At a depth of a foot or more 
they hollow out a sort of chamber and from this make several 
radiating tunnels or subways, some of which reach well up into 
the high bank rods away and above high-water mark if pos- 
sible, where the nest chamber is placed just under the turf or 
the protecting roots of a tree. Other tunnels extend in an op- 
posite direction to the deepest parts of the channel that never 
freeze: 
The sods and mud removed are piled up about the original 
opening in a more or less dome-shaped heap, which usually contains 
two rooms, one at the bottom partly or quite submerged, the 
other above it and a little to one side, ventilited at the top, 
and with a short passage leading down to the first. 
In this way they are sure of a thoroughfare from their nest 
in the bank to the bottom of the stream, with a breathing-place 
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