48 MEN I HAVE FISHED WITH. 



that fence there by Cassin's house, jerkin' his tail because 

 he is mad at you for coming here to stop his work." He 

 knew that the little ground squirrel was a "chipmunk" 

 and stored its food under the protecting roots of trees, and 

 by observation had learned how it dug a hole without 

 leaving outside evidence of it, even though he knew noth- 

 ing of its anatomy. 



Port's great fur harvest sometimes came in midwinter, 

 but always in early spring, by a "January thaw," and 

 surely in April. The ice never melts in the Hudson about 

 Albany, but is broken up by floods when the snow melts 

 in the upper country or in the Mohawk Valley, and often 

 goes out in great fields, nearly two feet thick, which crowd 

 on top of each other and break by the overhanging 

 weight. Grounding on shallows just above Castleton, 

 which bar in the river the Dutch knew as the "Over- 

 slaugh," the water is dammed and floods the lower parts 

 of Albany so that boats can often float up Broadway as 

 far as State street, and all the flats and bottom lands on 

 both sides of the river are several feet under water, often 

 for weeks or until the ice dam breaks. The muskrats of 

 that region have been so accustomed to this state of 

 things that they rarely build houses, as in other parts of 

 the country, although I have seen an occasional house 

 there; but houses being of no use in such events, the in- 

 stinct to build has been nearly lost. When the freshet 

 comes the musquash is drowned out of the holes in the 

 bank and seeks the piles of flotsam to hide among. Every 

 gun in Greenbush and on the hills below is brought out, 

 and everything in the shape of a boat that can be had is 

 put into commission for the slaughter, and the roar of 

 successive guns reminds a veteran of a skirmish line. 

 Many men are shooting for profit, Old Port among them, 

 but a larger number are out for fun and pile the rodents 



