1044 Observations on the Muskrat. [ November, 
is different from that here presented, and embraces a different 
series of observations. 
The lack of agricultural museums in which domesticated varie- 
ties of plants find representation, the general ignorance of the 
varieties which were grown by our predecessors, and the in gen- 
eral careless descriptions which occur in the writings on agricul- 
ture, render a study of this sort embarrassing and difficult. A 
careful study, however, of the figures given by the botanists of 
the sixteenth century and thereafter, and a careful collation of evi- 
dence gleaned from more recent authors on gardening, together 
with the fact that the appearance of new form-species of cultivated 
vegetables seems to date from the introduction of forms of the 
same species from distant regions, and the rarity of appearance of 
novelties which cannot be identified with some previously de- 
scribed type, all encourage to the belief in the correctness of the 
generalization that in our domesticated vegetable plants cross- 
fertilization shows its effect at once in the reproduction of the 
orm-species and varieties which are involved in the parentage of 
the crossed seed, and that when “ pure seed” is crossed interme- 
diate forms rarely occur, but the original parents in variable pro- 
portions. 
OBSERVATIONS ON THE MUSKRAT? 
BY AMOS W. BUTLER. 
HE muskrat (Fiber zibethicus Cuv.) is very abundant in most 
localities in Southeastern Indiana. In local distribution it 
varies in numbers according to the abundance of water and favor- 
able localities for its increase. From all that I can learn, I do 
not think it is less common than at the time of the early settle- 
ment of this region. 
These animals soon became acquainted with man and, from ex- 
perience, learned that his presence assured them a great abund- 
ance of food at much less labor than formerly, while, at the same 
time, their natural enemies decreased in numbers on account of 
his necessity and pleasure. In some localities, owing to the perse- 
_ lFor instance, the deer tongue lettuce, with lanceolate leaves, which appeared 
_ about 1883, is almost identical with the Lactuca folio oblongo acuto figured in Bau- 
hin’s Prodromas, edition of 1671, p. 60. 
Read before the section of Biology of the American Association for the Advance- 
Science at Ann Arbor, Mich., Aug. 27, 1885. 
