MUSKRATS 



By C. WILLIAM BEEBE 



ONG before man be- 

 gan to inherit the 

 earth, giant beavers 

 built their dams and 

 swam in the streams 

 of long ago. For 

 ages they have been 

 extinct. Our fore- 

 fathers found the smaller historical 

 beavers abundant, and trapped them 

 with such zeal that the race is now 

 well nigh vanished. Nothing is left 

 to us but the humble muskrat — which 

 in name and in facile adaptation to the 

 encroachments of civilization has little 

 in common with his more noble prede- 

 cessor. Yet in many ways his habits of 

 life bring to mind the beaver. 



Let us make the most of our heritage 

 and watch at the edge of a stream, some 

 evening in late fall. If the muskrats 

 have but partly completed their mound 

 of sticks and mud, which is to serve 

 them for a winter home, we may be 

 sure of seeing some of them at work. 

 Two lines of ripples furrow the sur- 

 face outward from the farther bank, 

 and a small dark form clambers upon 

 the pile of rubbish. Suddenly a spat 

 sounds at our very feet and a second 

 muskrat dives headlong into the water, 

 followed by the one on the mound. 

 Another spat and splash comes from 

 farther down the stream and so the 

 danger signal of the muskrat clan is 

 passed along — a single slap upon the 

 water with the flat of the tail. 



If we wait patiently the work will 

 be taken up anew, and in the pale moon- 

 light of this and other nights, the little 

 laborers will fashion their "house," 

 lining the upper chamber with soft 

 grass, and shaping the steep passage- 

 way which will lead to the ever-frozen 



stream bed. Either here or in the snug 

 tunnel-nest deep in the bank the young 

 muskrats are born, and here they are 

 weaned upon toothsome mussels and 

 succulent lily roots. 



Safe from all but mink and owl and 

 trap, these sturdy creatures spend the 

 summer in and about the streams, and 

 when winter shuts down hard and fast 

 they live more interesting lives than any 

 of our other animals. The frost freezes 

 their underground tunnels into tubes of 

 iron — the ice seals the water past all 

 gnawing out, and yet, amid the quietly 

 flowing water where snow and wind 

 never penetrate, these warm-blooded, 

 air-breathing muskrats live the winter 

 through, with only the trout and eels for 

 company. Their food is the soft bark 

 and pith of certain plants ; their air is 

 what leaks through the house of sticks 

 or what may collect at the meeting 

 place of ice and shore. 



Stretched full length on the smooth 

 ice, let us look through into that strange 

 nether world where stress of storm is 

 unknown. Sinuous black forms undu- 

 late through the water far beneath us, 

 from tunnel to house and back again. 

 As we gaze down through the crystal- 

 line mass, the many fractures and air- 

 bubbles play strange optical pranks 

 with the objects below. The animate 

 shapes seem to take to themselves great- 

 er bulk; their tails broaden, their bodies 

 become many times longer. For a mo- 

 ment the illusion is perfect. Thousands 

 of centuries have slipped back and we 

 are looking at the giant beavers of old. 



Let us give thanks that even the 

 lowly muskrat still holds his own. A 

 century or two hence and posterity may 

 look with wonder at his stuffed skin 

 behind the glass of a museum case. 



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