THE MUSKRAT AS A FUR BEAKER AND AS FOOD. 



5 



Muskrats inhabit the greater part of North America from the 

 northern limit of trees south about to the Mexican border. They 

 are absent from the coastal parts of South Carolina, Georgia, Ala- 

 bama, and Texas, and from Florida and nearly all of California. 

 They do not occur in parts of the interior plateau that have no 

 streams or lakes. Throughout their extensive range, except in New- 

 foundland and southern Louisiana, they are considered as of one 

 species with about a dozen geographic races. 1 



B I22M 



Fig. 1.— Muskrat house on Concord River, Mass. (Photograph by William Brewster.) 

 GENERAL HABITS. 



Muskrats are chiefly nocturnal, but they are much more active by 

 day than many persons suppose. Where seldom disturbed they often 

 may be seen at work in bright sunlight, especially at the season when 

 they are building winter houses. These structures, though smaller 

 and less strongly built, are in many ways similar to those of the 

 beaver (fig. 1). 



HOUSES AND BURROWS. 



Muskrat houses are composed of rushes, grasses, and roots and 

 stems of other aquatic plants. The structure rests on the bottom of 

 a shallow pond, and is built mainly of the kind of plants on which the 

 animals feed. These are heaped up without orderly arrangement 



1 For a full discussion of the distribution and relationships of the various forms, see 

 North American Fauna No. 32, A Systematic Synopsis of the Muskrats, by N. Hollister, 

 Biol. Surv., U. S. Dept. Agr., 1911. 



