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DE. J. EAE ON THE BIRDS AND MAMMALS 



When the hares are abundaut, an Indian and his family pitch 

 their tent among them in winter, and cut down a number of the 

 trees, part of which forms the hares' favourite food, then make 

 barriers of small pine trees and brush, through which gaps are cut 

 to allow the hares to run through. Allowing them a short time to 

 fatten up on the abundant food provided for them, a hundred 

 snares, or more, are set in the openings of the barriers, and these 

 Snares are attended to by the wife and children of the hunter, 

 whilst he sets up a number of traps in two or three directions to 

 the distance of perhaps eight or ten miles from his tent, each of 

 which he ^dsits two or three times a week to bring home the fur- 

 bearing a-nimals caught, chiefly fox, lynx, fisher, and marten, 

 taking with him on each visit a supply of fresh baits. The 

 Indian is thus carrying on his winter hunt in the most advan- 

 tageous manner, the hares attracting the carnivora above named 

 to his traps, whilst at the same time they supply, without any 

 difficulty, an abundance of food and the most comfortable winter 

 blankets known. The making of these blankets is peculiar ; the 

 hare skins, after being cut into strips, are stitched end to end, 

 and plaited so loosely that the finger can be poked through 

 them in any direction, yet a person can sleep comfortably 

 wrapped up in one of these on the coldest night, with the tem- 

 perature say 40° below" zero, without any fire. 



When the hares become scarce, not only has the Indian to 

 travel about ■ in search of large game, or go fishing to obtain 

 food for himself and family, but the fur-bearing animals have 

 also to wander abroad ; consequently the Indian cannot catch 

 so many hares, and they have time to increase and multiply until 

 a season of abundance again comes round. 



The house-building habits of the muskrat in nearly every part 

 of British North America are well known, but there is one plan 

 to which it sometimes resorts under certain circumstances which 

 appears to show great intelligence in enabling it to get its food 

 more readily. The muskrat, when about to build its house, 

 selects a pond or swamp of good pure water, on the bottom of 

 which grow the plants which constitute its winter supply of food. 

 If the pond or swamp is of considerable extent, and the house a 

 large one containing many rats, they, when the water begins to 

 freeze in early winter, keep several holes open in the ice in 

 different directions, and at a distance from the house, and build 

 a little hut of mud and weeds (just large enough to hold one rat 

 comfortably) over each hole which — especially when covered with 



