520 



EEPORT OF STATE GEOLOGIST. 



in some places that it was possible to open three or four of their 

 houses from an anchored boat. Mr. I. N. Lamb states that in 1871, 

 after the Kankakee valley burned off, he sometimes caught more 

 than eighty muskrats in a single night in his line of 100 steel traps. 

 In the history of Lake County it is stated that the annual catch in 

 that county alone, varied between 20,000 and 40,000 during all of 

 the period from 1834 to 1884. In the Northwest territories of 

 Canada, according to Macfarlane, more than 768,000 skins were 

 taken by the Hudson's Bay Company in 1873, while in 1903 the 

 number had reached 1,482,670: 



In spite of this tremendous slaughter the species holds its own 

 fairly well except where the habitat is reduced by drainage or 

 where disease becomes prevalent, as it sometimes does. As recently 

 as 1904 one trapper I know claims to have caught 300 "rats" in 

 30 days, trapping in the Kankakee in Newton and Lake counties. 

 The same season another trapper took 700 of the animals during 

 the fall and winter in Porter and Jasper counties. The average 

 price of the skins is about 15 cents, the price varying in different 

 years, and being higher for late winter than for fall skins. 



The food of muskrats is quite varied. During the summer it 

 consists principally of marsh grasses and other aquatic plants. 

 When these become scarce in winter, the animals turn to any 

 vegetable food at hand, and gardens and cornfields near their 

 homes may suffer in consequence. At such times they also re- 

 sort to animal food, and the fresh water mussels are often eaten. 

 The shells can be cut with the powerful incisors of the rodents, and 

 it is said that they have also learned to carry mussels out of the 

 water and lay them on the bank, where they die and are then 

 opened easily with the paws. 



Butler states that the number of young is usually from four to 

 six, but Macfarlane says that from eight to twenty are produced 

 at a time in Canada. The adult females usually produce three 

 litters a year, the young being brought forth between March and 

 September in grass-lined nests in the tunnels that lead into the 

 banks of the streams. 



Economic status. — As shown above, the muskrat may be a 

 source of income to a considerable number of ])eople. If the figures 

 given above for Lake County are correct, the residents of that 

 county made fcmr or five thousand dollars annually from the musk- 

 rat hides in Ww, fifty ycnrs pi-eceding 1SS4. 



The injury wliicli tlicsc nnininls do to crops is negligibl(% since 



