Appendix VI 



The Muskrat 



Extracts from Farmers' Bulletin 396, U. S. Department of 

 Agriculture, 1910 



By 



D. E. Lantz 



PUBLISHED accounts of the muskrat's breeding disagree so widely 

 that the habits of the animals might be supposed to differ in 

 different sections of the country. Harlan states that the female brings 

 forth 5 or 6 young annually. Richardson, on the other hand, says: 

 "In latitude 55° the musquash has three litters in the course of the 

 season and from three to seven young in a litter". 



W. Butler, writing of the muskrat in Indiana, states that he is 

 convinced that in his vicinity the animals breed but once a year, though 

 he admits the probability of exceptions. He gives the number of young 

 as 4 to 6 and the period of gestation as about six weeks. Roderick 

 MacFarlane, a chief factor of the Hudson's Bay Company, in writing of 

 the mammals of the Mackenzie River region, states that the female has 

 two litters the first season, and three each succeeding season, and that 

 the number of young at times varies from 8 to 20. His statements are 

 based on information obtained from the Company's Indian hunters, 

 who are keen observers 



All this testimony shows that in their breeding habits muski-ats 

 are not unlike field mice. This conclusion is further strengthened by 

 the remarkable way in which the marshes, depleted by vigorous winter 

 trapping, are replenished before the opening of another season. The 

 known facts may be thus summarized: Normally, the animals mate in 

 March and the first litter is born in April; a second litter is due in June 

 or early July, and a third in August or September. In favourable 

 seasons a fourth or even a fifth litter may be produced. The period of 

 gestation is possibly no longer than twenty-one days, as with the com- 

 mon rat and probably with the field mouse. The young are blind and 

 naked when born but develop rapidly. Outside of low marshes, musk- 

 rats are usually born in the underground burrows 



Food. — Like nearly all rodents the muskrat is chiefly herbivorous, 

 but it sometimes indulges in animal food, a habit which it shares with 

 brown rats, house mice, field mice, lemmings, wood rats, squirrels, and 

 other gnawers. 



