Notes on Birds and Mammals. 138 
When the hares are scarce, the Indian has to go toa 
fishery to obtain a supply of food, or to travel about in 
search of deer or other large animals for food, whilst at 
the same time the fur-bearing carnivora, get scattered all 
over the country, also in search of food, and are not so 
readily trapped, and have thus an opportunity of increasing 
in numbers until the next season of abundant hares comes 
round. 
There is a curious practise sometimes resorted to—not 
however common, as far as my observation extends—by 
the muskrats, to enable them to reach the food at all parts 
of the pond in which their house is built. In early winter, 
when the ice begins to form, the rats keep small holes 
open in different directions at a distance from their house, 
and build little huts of mud and weeds over these, into which 
they can enter and eat their food taken from the bottom of 
the pond, without having to swim all the way back to their 
house to do so. It has been only in large ponds or swamps 
that I have seen this done, and probably where there was 
an extra large number of rats in one house. On one 
occasion, when snowshoeing through a swampy part of the 
north-west, one of my men went very quietly up to one of 
these little shelters, and with a heavy blow of his axe 
knocked it over, and inside a poor little rat was found with 
some of the food it had been eating. It was knocked on 
the head, and in the evening formed part of the men’s supper. 
In 1851, in the early part of June, when on my way 
from the Arctic Sea, where I had been making a long 
sledge journey of more than 1000 miles, I was surprised to 
meet thousands of lemmings travelling with all the speed 
in their power to the north. On some of the tributaries of 
the Coppermine River the ice had broken up, and at these 
it was curious to see these little animals running up or 
down the southern bank of the stream looking for a 
smooth place with little current at which to swim across, 
having found which, they immediately jumped in, swam 
with great rapidity, and gave themselves a shake, as a dog 
would do, when they reached the opposite side, and then 
