under the dam are honeycombed with subter- 

 ranean passages, in which many of the musk- 

 rats live the year round. Neither food nor 

 weather, so far as I have found, influence them 

 at all in the choice of their winter quarters. 

 In low, wet meadows where there are no 



^^v 



Section of muskrat's house. 



ditches, the muskrats, of course, live altogether 

 in mud and reed houses above ground, for the 

 water would flood the ordinary burrow. These 

 structures are placed on the tussocks along a 

 water-hole, so that the dwellers can dive out 

 and escape under water when danger ap- 

 proaches. But here in the tide-meadows, 

 where the ditches are deep, the muskrats rear 

 their families almost wholly in underground 

 [174] 



