THE MUSQUASH. 143 
white. The whole colouring of the animal is so wonderfully like the hue of 
the muddy banks on which it resides, that a practised naturalist has often 
mistaken the Ondatras for mere lumps of mud until they began to move, and 
so dispelled the illusion. The hinder feet of the Ondatra are well webbed, 
and their imprint on the soft mud is very like that of a common duck. 
The food of the Ondatra in a wild state appears to be almost wholly of a 
vegetable nature ; although, when confined in a cage, one of these animals 
lvas been seen to eat mussels and oysters, cutting open the softest shells, and 
extracting the inmates, and waiting for the hard-shelled specimens until they 
either opened of their own accord or died. Although the Ondatra is a clumsy 
walker, it will sometimes travel to some distance from the water-side, and has 
been noticed on a spot nearly three-quarters of a mile from any water. These 
animals have also been detected in ravaging a garden, which they had 
MUSQUASH, OR MUSK RAT, OR ONDATRA.—(/iber Zibéthicus.) 
plundered of turnips, parsnips, carrots, maize, and other vegetables. The 
mischievous creatures had burrowed beneath them, bitten through their roots 
and carried them away to their subterranean storehouses. The maize they. 
had procured by cutting the stalks near the level of the ground. 
The Ondatra lives mostly in burrows, which it digs in the banks of the 
river in which it finds its food, but sometimes takes up its abode in a different 
kind of habitation, according to the locality and the soil. In the stiff clay’ 
banks of rivers the Ondatra digs arather complicated series of tunnels, some, 
of them extending to a distance of fifteen or twenty yards, and sloping 
upwards. There are generally three or four entrances, all of which open 
under water, and unite in a single chamber, where the Ondatra makes its 
bed. The couch of the luxurious animal is composed of sedges, water-lily 
leaves, and similar plants, and is so large as to fill a bushel basket. On 
i 
