80 ANIMAL COMPETITORS 
also a good flesh-food which is not utilized to 
the extent it deserves. 
Excellence of muskrat flesh. The Indian 
aborigines habitually ate this flesh, especially 
in winter, and taught the colonists how to cook 
it, boiled with corn, into a toothsome dish. The 
early western hunters and explorers were glad 
to ‘get it, liking it roasted over a slow fire. 
Lantz tells us that in the retail markets of 
Philadelphia, Baltimore, Wilmington and other 
cities, these animals are sold as ‘‘marsh rab- 
bits,’? but no attempt is made to conceal the 
fact’that they are muskrats, 
‘‘They are bought and eaten both by well-to-do 
citizens and by the poorer people who seldom indulge 
in high-priced game. The animals are trapped pri- 
marily for their pelts, but after they are skinned, 
the additional labor of preparing the meat for mar- 
ket is so slight that they can be sold very cheaply. 
“In the Baltimore markets, February 21, 1908, I 
found muskrats for sale at various stalls. The retail 
price was 10 cents each. At the commission houses 
I learned that several firms receive them regularly 
from the lower Chesapeake. 
“In February, 1907, the Philadelphia Record 
stated that a single dealer on Dock street in that city 
sold about 3,000 muskrats a week for food. The chief 
