246 THKOUGH THE MACKENZIE BASIN 



and they may go still lower for this season, after which they 

 will, as usual, rapidly increase again in numbers. More 

 attention than before is now given to the hunting of the 

 musquash in this and other districts, and as a result the 

 Company's sales are very considerably above the average 

 of former years. In January, 1897, they sold 492,244 

 skins; in January, 1900, T56, 910 skins; in January, 1901, 

 I am told that the sales bordered on 2,000,000 skins; in 

 January, 1902, 1,650,214 skins, and in January, 1903, 

 1,482,670 skins. This last showing is only 53,122 skins less 

 than doulble the figures for the best sale (1873) entered in 

 the London sales statement. The aggregate total for the 

 period was 10,600,056 skins. 



Leading hunters at the Pas, Cumberland, state that when 

 about a year old the musquash begins to breed. The female 

 has but two litters, the first and three each succeeding season 

 for a time. The number of young brought forth at a birth 

 varies betwen 8 and 20. When born, they are weak and 

 blind for some days, but they soon acquire sight and strength 

 and learn to swim about and aid in providing for their own 

 gradually increasing wants. Their food consists of esculent 

 grasses and aquatic roots of various kinds. As already men- 

 tioned, many thousands of musquash die of disease, and 

 many other thousands perish in seasons of low water. Mr. 

 Colin Thomson, an intelligent observer, remarks: 



They have an instinctive habit which those who hunt them 

 would do well to learn. They have a general residence in which 

 they live and exercise their natural instincts; to this residence a 

 storehouse is attached at a little distance, in which they put up 

 many dainty and succulent roots against the " rainy day '' and a 

 long winter; and when misfortune drives them from their homes, 

 they are not without a refuge, althougli it be but a small one. The 

 material used in the construction of their houses is such as they 

 find in the marshy swamps where they live, and it is not uncommon 

 to find the entire family of a season living in one house, sometimes 

 as many as sixty in all. 



