24 ECONOMIC MAMMALOGY 



ment. Over $1,000,000 worth of rabbit meat was sold in Los Angeles 

 in I926. 10 



The meat of muskrats, if properly cooked, is pronounced excellent 

 by many who have used it, and it is now sold regularly in the markets 

 of several eastern American cities, where it appears under the trade 

 name "marsh rabbit" during the trapping season, the trappers getting 

 from $2.50 to $3.00 a dozen for the carcasses, 11 which gives them a 

 neat addition to the amount they receive for the furs, when one con- 

 siders that they catch the muskrats by the hundreds and must skin 

 them anyhow. A great many other small mammals are used to some 

 extent for food and the aggregate amount of meat derived therefrom 

 the world over must be very large. In America one naturally thinks 

 at once of the squirrels, raccoons and opossums. Trappers often ex- 

 press a liking for beaver meat, some relish skunk, and one of the 

 authors of the present volume found young prairie-dogs quite palata- 

 ble. According to one trapper, wildcat flesh is very tender and agree- 

 able food, and while dogs like it, they are said to dislike fox flesh. 12 



Badgers, porcupines, woodchucks, gophers and many other Ameri- 

 can mammals are eaten and pronounced good by white men, as well 

 as by Indians. The woodchuck is eaten with great relish by the Ken- 

 tucky mountaineers. 13 In fact, there is no reason why many of the vege- 

 tarian rodents, when not too old, tough and rank, should not be as good 

 as squirrels, if we could only overcome our prejudices. They are cer- 

 tainly as clean in their habits as chickens or hogs, or more so. Natives 

 of some countries are said to eat the flesh of the common house rat. 



In South America natives consider monkey flesh a great delicacy, 

 and anteaters are also used as food. 14 Various marine mammals, such 

 as seals and porpoises, are used as food, and whale meat is sometimes 

 sold in American markets. 15 Walrus, when obtainable, has always been 

 one of the chief foods of the Eskimo, but these animals have become so 

 scarce that reindeer were introduced into Alaska as a substitute. It is 

 manifestly impossible to make even a worth-while guess as to the total 

 percentage of the world's daily menu furnished by the flesh of wild 

 mammals. 



10 Ashbrook, Fur farming for profit, p. 219, 1928. 



11 Ashbrook, Fur farming for profit, p. 218, 1928. 



12 Ross, Journ. Mammalogy, ix, 250, 1928. 



13 Hamilton, Journ. Mammalogy, xi, 310, 1930. 



14 Holt, Monkeys as human food, Journ. Mammalogy, iv, 193-194, 1923. Tate, 

 Journ. Mammalogy, xu, 249, 1931. 



15 Radcliffe, Whales and porpoises as food, U. S. Bureau of Fisheries Economic 

 Circular No. 38, 1918. 



