SWIMMERS CONCLUDED 



await the course of events, resting quietly on the 

 water, which sUpped away from his nose as the 

 current swirled past him. 



When I released him, he acted as though he 

 had been expecting it all along, and, diving, con- 

 tinued his travels down-stream as if nothing had 

 happened. When the fall rains come, the musk- 

 rats are able to swim about their feeding-grounds, 

 where before they were obliged to walk ; and 

 now they begin to have their regular feeding 

 places, to which they carry their roots, or what- 

 ever else they find to eat, — anything that they 

 can clamber upon answers, an old log or a 

 tussock, or the ruins of a last year's cabin. 



Sometimes they carry a few sticks and pieces 

 of sod to some chosen spot, and build up a 

 resting-place in shallow water. They build their 

 cabins in October and November ; and there 

 seem to be about as many methods of building 

 as cabins. Some that I have seen started ap- 

 peared to be simply solid heaps of sod without 



159 



