76 RAMBLES ABOUT HOME. 



times to trappers and the "old folks" of the neighborhood, 

 was in every instance assured that, when no such houses 

 were built in the fall, the winter would be very "open " 

 or mild, and vice versa. In other words, the power of fore- 

 telling the character of the coming winter was ascribed 

 to the musk-rat by these trappers and old folks generally, 

 who are popularly supposed to have gained much accu- 

 rate knowledge from long observation. " Nature," indeed, 

 "is an admirable school-mistress," but careless scholars 

 do not do her justice. I was the more surprised at this, 

 too, because I have found that these same people can 

 generally give us more accurate details of the habits of 

 our animals than are found in the books. 



Having my doubts as to the truth of this, as well as 

 other "common impressions," I have for many years 

 tested the matter, and noted down in what years houses 

 were built in the same localities, and when none were 

 erected. The result was about as I expected. In the 

 majority of instances it proved to be precisely the reverse 

 of what I had been told. As an example of this, take 

 the two winters, 1879-'80 and 1880-'81. The former 

 was very mild and spring-like, and numerous large houses 

 were built ; during the succeeding autumn, in the same 

 locality, none were erected; and the character of the 

 winter was precisely the opposite of the preceding one. 

 Now, the musk-rats were here all winter, just the same, 

 but they lived in their subterranean homes. The records 

 of the past twenty years, in fact, clearly show that the 

 " common impression " should be reversed, if it be true 

 that there is a ghost of a connection between the custom 

 of erecting these conical houses in autumn and the char- 

 acter of the coming winter. 



Why these winter-dwellings are not always erected, is 

 not easy to determine ; nor do plausible explanations sug- 



