124 JOURNAL AND PROCEEDINGS. 



BIOLOGICAL NOTES. 



Read before the Haviilton Association, February 6th, 1896. 

 BY WM. YATES, HATCHLEY, ONT. 



The musk-rat seems to be in several respects a diminutive edi- 

 tion of the beaver, though not quite so communistic. In many 

 places they are known to build huts of coarse sedge grass, which are 

 situated at some distance from the banks of shallow streams : but 

 these animals show considerable adaptability in choice of residence ; 

 for where the stream is characterized by high loamy shores the 

 musk-rat shows a preference for excavations whose ingress and egress 

 is mainly below the usual water level of the stream, and when a 

 watercourse is of the size and permanence as regards non-liability to 

 dry up in summer season, the rodents often increase in numbers to 

 such an extent as to commit considerable depredations upon such 

 farm crops as grow in the vicinity. 



Many of our neighbors have made complaint of the damage to 

 corn fields, both in the stage of early cereal growth and also when 

 the forming ears are in a sweet and succulent state. Field carrots 

 also suffer from their ravages, and full-grown musk-rats are fre- 

 quently seen swimming the creeks, on the way to their rendezvous, 

 carrying huge mouthfuls of green clover stalks in the succulent state 

 of blossom. They also visit the apple orchards when the ripe fallen 

 fruit abounds, and have been known to visit barns where heaps 

 of sweet apples had been temporarily stored. The hunters declare 

 that the musk-rat burrows are generally too deep and too much 

 ramified for successful raidmg by the digging out process, and trap- 

 ping or shooting are the most general appliances for capture. 



In one of our recent abnormally dry autumns, when the water 

 in the channel of our local creek had dried up, except in a very few 

 of the deepest parts of the channels, and near to this limited area of 

 water supply there seemed to be a concentration of musk-rat popu- 



