224 THE LOG OF THE SUN 



passed along, — a single flap upon the water ^vitH 

 the fiat of the talL 



K we wait silent and patient, the work will be 

 taken up anew, and in the pale moonlight the 

 little labourers wiU fashion their house, lining 

 the upper chamber with soft grasses, and shaping 

 the steep passageway which will lead to the ever- 

 unfrozen stream-bed. Either here or in the snug 

 tunnel nest deep in the bank the young muskrats 

 are bom, and here they are weaned upon tooth- 

 some mussels and succulent lily roots. 



Safe from all save mink and owl and trap, these 

 sturdy muskrats spend the summer in and about 

 the streams; and when winter shuts down hard 

 and fast, they live lives more interesting than any 

 of our other animals. The ground freezes their 

 tunnels into tubes of iron, — the ice seals the 

 surface, past all gnawing out; and yet, amid the 

 quietly flowing water, where snow and wind never 

 penetrate, these warm-blooded, air-breathing 

 muskrats live the wiater through, with only the 

 trout and eels for company. Their food is the 

 bark and pith of certain plants ; their air is what 

 leaks through the house of sticks, or what may 

 collect at the melting-pl^ce of ice and shore. 



Stretched full length on the smooth ice, let us 

 look through into that strange nether world, 



