208 IN BERKSHIRE FIELDS 



whereat the rat, with a squeal of rage, made a 

 spring right over the shoe, and set his long, 

 sharp teeth through moccasin and two pairs of 

 woolen socks, into his tormentor's little toe, where 

 he hung fast as a bulldog, while the tormentor be- 

 came the tormented, and began to hop wildly on one 

 foot, kicking with the other. As soon as I could 

 stop laughing sufficiently I pulled the rat off by the 

 tail, and we let him go, the dogs in full pursuit. 

 He made for the river, found a small hole between 

 the bank and the ice, and vanished. Of course, 

 man is the great foe of the muskrat nowadays, with 

 his traps. The pelts are bringing undreamed-of 

 prices to-day, and if the present scale is kept up 

 the muskrat can hardly survive without protection. 

 Nothing can survive the unrestrained greed of man. 

 A single fur establishment in New York advertised 

 the other day over 300,000 muskrat-skins. 



The least attractive, as well as one of the largest 

 of rodents, and the one whose gnawing capacity 

 can be the most destructive, is the porcupine. 

 The porcupine, as everybody knows, is armored 

 well against all enemies. His quills, normally lying 

 backward with the hair, can be erected by muscular 

 action of the skin, and only the craftiest hunters 

 can get to his comparatively unprotected throat. 

 Moreover, those sharp quills come out easily from 

 his skin, but with the utmost difficulty from the 

 skin of any animal they have penetrated, for they 

 are pointed with tiny barbs. I have seen a dog come 

 down one of our mountains with his face and chest 

 stuck full ; and he had to be killed to end his misery, 

 for the quills had worked inward. Yet the porcu- 



