THE MUSKRAT. 



17 



Much of the food collected by the muskrat in summer, whether 

 from land or water, is consumed at the water's edge, while the animal 

 sits on the end of a log, a pile of drift, or a draw-up. The summer 

 draw-up is often quite bulky, showing its long use. 



One frequently comes upon heaps of mussel shells, chiefly Lamp- 

 silis and other Unionidw, on the margins of ponds and streams. The 

 thin-shelled species frequently have the valves broken, but the 

 heavier kinds are often without injury or tooth marks. The infer- 

 ence is that the unbroken mussels have been left to die and open of 

 themselves, after which the muskrat secures the meat. j 



Hunters occasionally find muskrats feeding on the bodies of water- 

 fowl that have been shot and lost on the marshes. Sometimes a duck 

 is dragged into a muskrat house and devoured there. Muskrats have 

 been known to attack wounded or trapped individuals of their own 

 species, and, like field mice, wdien hard pressed for food are said to 

 kill and eat the weaker members of their own community. ' 



L. J. Cole and H. C. Tucker, of Ann Arbor, Mich., in 1901-2 kept 

 an adult muskrat in captivity for nearly seven months for the pur- 

 pose of observing its habits. It refused to eat animal food of any 

 kind, rejecting raw beef, fish, and mussels for its favorite vegetable 

 diet. Carrots w^re eaten in preference to everything else offered. 

 Besides carrots it ate cabbage, parsnips, potatoes, turnips, corn, 

 bread, cake, nuts (when cracked or shelled), maple bark, crab apple 

 flowers, strawberries, stems of the common flag, and the leaves of a 

 number of kinds of trees." Such observations, while not necessarily 

 indicative of the natural diet, show the animal's preference under 

 the conditions imposed. 



DESTRUCTIVE HABITS OF MUSKRATS. 



INJURY TO GARDENS AND CROPS. 



Damage to crops by muskrats is confined to limited areas. On low- 

 lying lands bordering streams they sometimes attack corn or other 

 grains, the injury usually being restricted to narrow belts near the 

 water's edge. Sometimes growing corn is eaten to the ground, but 

 the damage is greatest when it is in the roasting-ear stage. The 

 animals then cut down the stalks to reach the ears, which they carry 

 to their burrows. Injury to other grains, except rice, is generally 

 slight. 



Losses of garden crops on bottom lands are more serious than the 

 losses of grain. The black alluvial soils of creek bottoms are espe- 

 cially adapted to growing vegetables ; and to escape the effects of sum- 



« Fourth Kept. Mich. Acad. Science for 1902, p. 199, 1904. 

 34656— Bull. 396—10 3 



