THE HAMILTON ASSOCIATION. 1 29 



wintry landscape ! It is always by their presence " touched off " 

 with magnificence. They seem a perfectly integral part of the 

 appointments of the snowy expanse. Their movements, too, seem 

 rhymically ordered, and at certain bends in their flying evolutions 

 around the fields, twinkling musical "calls" are uttered, seemingly 

 as aids to conformity of the regulations, and to preserve the unity of 

 organization in the vast multitude. There are some very weedy 

 fields about here, and the snow-birds revel from hour to hour among 

 the tall seed-laden dried stems of various species of cheopodiacean 

 and compositse that human negligence has permitted to intrude in 

 our cultivated areas. 



A neighbor, who keeps a large flock of geese, informs me that 

 occasionally, when the latter are swimming on the waters of the large 

 creek which meanders through his farm, a musk-rat will appear near, 

 swimming rapidly on its way to its rendezvous burrow in the adjoin- 

 ing banks, and the geese seem to be aware that the intruder on their 

 demesne is no carnivora, but merely requires " a right of way," and 

 the geese show no terror or alarm, and but little mistrust at the big 

 rodent's proximity ; but should that semi-aquatic feline, the mink, 

 invade the precincts, there is much noisy protest and trepidation 

 manifested^ for the mink is in bad odor with the whole feathered 

 tribe, both on land and water. 



The aroma that accompanies the musk-rat seems to have been 

 intended as a protective influence, and appears to be somewhat un- 

 der the control of the quadruped as to its diffusion and volatability • 

 for when these rodents are suddenly disturbed or interfered with, 

 when on land, and especially when they are in a combative mood, 

 the scent spreads around with extra vigor, and the rodents are said 

 " to throw their musk" in a defensive way, similar to the ruse of 

 their unnamable cotemporary of the sable and white streakings. 



.Another observer, whom one could name, states that the musk- 

 rats appropriate quantities of his growing wheat crop when the grain 

 is in the succulent or milky stage of ripening, and he sometimes 

 shoots them as they are retreating from the field and carrying off 

 large mouthfuls of the straw and grain to their subterranean dwelling 

 places in the creek banks. And near to the farm of the individual 

 just alluded to, there is a large barn situated at the edge of an apple 

 orchard, the owner of which made complaints that "rats" were 



