142 
DR. J. RAE ON THE BIRDS AND MAMMALS 
When the hares are abundant, an Indian and his family pitch 
their tent among them in winter, and cut down a number of the 
trees, part of which forms the hares’ favourite food, then make 
barriers of small pine trees and brush, through which gaps are cut 
to allow the hares to run through. Allowing them a short time to 
fatten up on the abundant food provided for them, a hundred 
snares, or more, are set in the openings of the barriers, and these 
snares are attended to by the wife and children of the hunter, 
whilst he sets up a number of traps in two or three directions to 
the distance of perhaps eight or ten miles from his tent, each of 
which he visits two or three times a week to bring home the fur- 
bearing animals caught, chiefly fox, lynx, fisher, and marten, 
taking with him on each visit a supply of fresh baits. The 
Indian is thus carrying on his winter hunt in the most advan- 
tageous manner, the hares attracting the carnivora above named 
to his traps, whilst at the same time they supply, without any 
difficulty, an abundance of food and the most comfortable winter 
blankets known. The making of these blankets is peculiar ; the 
hare skins, after being cut into strips, are stitched end to end, 
and plaited so loosely that the finger can be poked through 
them in any direction, yet a person can sleep comfortably 
wrapped up in one of these on the coldest night, with the tem- 
perature say 40° below zero, without any fire. 
When the hares become scarce, not only has the Indian to 
travel about in search of large game, or go fishiDg to obtain 
food for himself and family, but the fur-bearing animals have 
also to wander abroad ; consequently the Indian cannot catch 
so many hares, and they have time to increase and multiply until 
a season of abundance again comes round. 
The house-building habits of the muskrat in nearly every part 
of British North America are well known, but there is one plan 
to which it sometimes resorts under certain circumstances which 
appears to show great intelligence in enabling it to get its food 
more readily. The muskrat, when about to build its house, 
selects a pond or swamp of good pure water, on the bottom of 
which grow the plants which constitute its winter supply of food. 
If the pond or swamp is of considerable extent, and the house a 
large one containing many rats, they, when the water begins to 
freeze in early winter, keep several holes open in the ice in 
different directions, and at a distance from the house, and build 
a little hut of mud and weeds (just large enough to hold one rat 
comfortably) over each hole which-— especially when covered with 
