CASTOROI<OGIA. 35 



in manufacture. The meat is regularly marketed in season and 

 furnishes quite a palatable dish. Formerly the fur was used simply 

 as a substitute for beaver in hat-making, the skin went through 

 similar processes and furnished a good imitation at a greatly reduced 

 price ; but latterly the science of fur manipulation has made the 

 musquash one of the most staple of all American furs ; and to-day 

 we have imitations of seal, otter and mink, produced from the mus- 

 quash. The animal is, perhaps, best known to us as the muskrat, 

 but this name does not carry sufficient dignity for a creature so 

 closely related to the beaver ; the specific name applies to the secre- 

 tion contained in two small pouches which in the spring contain a 

 thick fluid with a decidedly musky smell. 



The River rat, or Coypu, as it is called by the natives, is in many 

 ways the intermediate species between the musquash and the beaver, 

 and having been known as the "Castors of I^a Plata," might appro- 

 priately be named the South American beaver. It inhabits chiefly 

 Brazil, Chili and T,a Plata, where it is very numerous ; it is the 

 only known representative of the Genus myopotamus, and attains 

 nearly half the average size of the beaver, and like the musquash, 

 the coypu is very prolific. 



Its introduction to commerce was very recent though of great 

 importance, and the fact should not be overlooked that but for its 

 contribution to the hatters, our Canadian beaver would not have 

 survived so long. All accounts from North America during the 

 latter half of last century, which made reference at all to the fur 

 trade, agree in stating that the beaver would soon be extinct ; but, 

 about 1820, the immense demand was relieved by this new fur, called 

 nutria — (from the Spanish, nutra, the otter.) The fur was plentiful 

 and cheap, and sufficiently fine to supplant the beaver for all hatters' 

 purposes, but had the discovery of silk been longer delayed it is 

 doubtful whether the increasing demand could have been sustained 

 for many years. "When the silk hat succeeded to the enviable posi- 

 tion which the ' ' beaver ' ' for centuries had monopolized, it became 

 necessary to find other outlets for the skins which hitherto had been 

 consumed almost exclusively by the hatters' trade. We therefore 



