20 



THE MUSKRAT. 



Almost every season navigation on some of the principal canals of 

 the country is suspended for a time to repair breaks caused by musk- 

 rats. The Delaware and Raritan Canal near Trenton, N. J., was 

 injured by muskrats during- the early part of December, 1899, so 

 that the repairs required the complete cessation of navigation for 

 several days. In September, 1894, muskrats caused several enormous 

 breaks in the Erie Canal, one near Rochester and another on the 

 3-mile level near Brighton. 



Injury to rice fields in the South by muskrats has already been 

 mentioned. In the same sections costh^ levees protect cities and agri- 

 cultural lands from overflow^ during freshets. Frequent breaks in 

 these levees occasion heavy losses and much suffering. One of the 

 most common and insidious causes of breaks is the burrows made by 

 muskrats. So serious w^as the situation in Plaquemines Parish in the 

 winter of 1908-9 that a general slaughter of muskrats took place, and 

 inlly half a million of the animals were estimated to have been killed. 

 The pelts netted about $100,000,? w^hich in some measure compen- 

 sated for the losses the animals occasioned to rice and cane. 



In irrigated sections of the West, ditches and reservoirs are some- 

 times injured by muskrats, requiring costly repairs and involving 

 serious delays in the distribution of water to growing crops. Most 

 canal and irrigation companies find it profitable to employ watchmen 

 to patrol the embankments and look for burrows of muskrats, 

 gophers, and other animals. 



The breaking of milldams in districts where manufacturers depend 

 on w^ater power is often due to muskrat burrows. Such breaks are a 

 source of loss to manufacturers, operatives, and the entire community. 

 The manufacturer loses in repairs, diminished output, and loss of 

 contracts; the operatives lose their w^ages; and the community loses 

 in business dependent on the custom of operatives and, not infre- 

 quently, in destruction of property. Thus, in the spring of 1904, 

 near Thomaston, Conn., muskrats burrowed through a dam, wreck- 

 ing it and releasing the water, which injured property in the town 

 to the extent of several thousand dollars. 



In April, 1904, the waters of Saline River in southern Illinois 

 invaded the Equality mine and threatened the lives of about a hun- 

 dred miners. Investigations showed that the waters of the sw^ollen 

 river had reached the mine by way of muskrat burrows. 



Instances of the destruction of railway embankments, due to musk- 

 rats and water, are not rare. Injury to live stock through stepping 

 into burrow^s of muskrats is not infrequent; and in one instance a 

 costly driving track Avhich had been constructed near a marsh was 

 abandoned because of continued burrowing beneath it by these 



396 



« Sport ill Dixie, I, No. 2, p. 10, May, 1909. 



