Muskrat 
107 
not until then was it seen to be a muskrat, for while the 
chase was in progress the observers supposed it to be a mink. 
They have also been accused of eating crippled and dead 
ducks about the lakes where shooting is done. 
The animal is liable to cause harm about dams and irri- 
gating ditches from its habit of burrowing, for its holes in 
the dams and ditch banks may open very serious leaks and 
washouts, hence the companies owning reservoirs and ditches 
sometimes offer bounties for their extermination, whether 
with any practical result I do not know. 
Muskrats are not at all disturbed by the neighborhood 
of habitations, but are just as much at home near a thickly 
settled district as miles away from civilization. 
While they are of more or less nocturnal habits they are also 
often seen about during the daylight hours, sometimes 
swimming and feeding and again sunning themselves on a 
log or rock, or up in a clump of willows. 
Their young are born in the spring, a female taken May 
12th, in Grand County contained eight good sized embryos; at 
Lily, Routt County, the same year, young that were probably 
out of the nest only two or three weeks were taken July ist. 
At Barr, Adams County, very small young, not much larger 
than adult Microtus modestus, were taken May 30th. A 
muskrat taken June 24th at the Medano Ranch, Costilla 
County, contained seven embryos, and had been nursing, so 
this must have been a second litter. 
The fur is fine and soft, and has always found a market at 
some price; in the last twenty years it has varied in price from 
ten to forty cents for best prime skins, and at present writing 
is near the highest. Nowadays it is used very much for coat 
and cloak linings, as well as other fur garments. 
Subfamily NEOTOMINiE 
Rat-like animals of rather large dimensions with long tails, 
