Dec 3t, 1904.3 "! 
FOREST AND STREAM. 
858 
Musfcrat Hunting. 
BY HENRY THACKER. 
From "The Trappers' Guide." 
In the winter of 1844-5, I made two or three excur- 
sions from the city of Chicago into the neighboring wild 
regions for the purpose of spearing and trapping musk- 
rats. At this distance of time I shall hardly be able to 
give from memory a very accurate account of those ex- 
cursions; but I enjoyed them so well, and they made 
such vivid impressions on my mind, that I can at least 
give an outline of them, and shall recall as I proceed 
many interesting incidents. 
The first thing I did, by way of preparation for the 
campaign, was to procure a suitable spear, which was 
simply a rod of round steel, three-eights of an inch in 
diameter, and three feet long, nicely pointed and polished 
at one end, and at the other driven firmly into a ferruled 
wooden handle, also about three feet long. The next 
thing (and a very important one) was to provide a pair 
of mufflers, made of old carpeting, to be drawn on over 
my boots. Lastly I harnessed myself into- a knapsack 
suitable for carrying provisions, game, etc. Thus equipped, 
I put on my skates one morning, as soon as I found the 
ice strong enough to bear me, and started up the north 
branch of the Chicago River for Mud Lake, a small sheet 
of water about twelve miles distant, surrounded by ex- 
tensive marshes, a noted place, not only for the habitation 
of the muskrat and mink, but for the gathering in the 
spring and fall of the year of multitudes of almost every 
variety of wild ducks, geese, and other water fowl. 
Here let me describe the character and situation of 
this marsh and lake. The lake proper is a narrow sheet 
of water, from ten to twenty-five rods wide, and two or 
three miles in length. The water is from three to ten 
feet deep, and the soft mud at the bottom probably a 
great deal deeper. This lake seems to have two outlets 
flowing in opposite directions; one toward Chicago being 
the principal headwaters of the south branch of the river 
which forms the harbor of Chicago ; the other in the op^ 
posite direction, emptying into the Auxplaines River, 
which is among the headwaters of the Illinois River. 
I was told that at the time of the high water in June 
of that year (1844), schooners from Lake Michigan 
could easily have passed through this lake and marsh 
into the Auxplaines, and so down the Illinois River to the 
Mississippi. 
But to return to my story. On arriving at the marsh, 
I found the ice strong enough to bear my weight, and 
quite transparent. A sight was here presented that I 
had never seen before. I cannot describe the view better 
than by likening it to a large meadow covered with hay- 
cocks, so thickly was the marsh before me studded with 
muskrat houses. 
These structures are built up of flag-tops, roots, mud, 
and sea-weed or water grass, to the height and size of a 
hay-cock; and in them the muskrats live through the 
winter and spring. They generally commence their 
houses on a place where the water is one or- two feet 
deep, and build it up entirely solid,, to the height of 
three, to five feet above the water, cutting out channels 
diverging in different directions from the house, and 
using the materials thus displaced in strengthening the 
foundation of the house. These channels are used as 
runways by the rats in going back and forth between 
the h.ouse and their feeding beds, during winter. After 
the superstructure is finished a hole is cut from under- 
neath up into the center of the house, forming a nest 
just above the water, leaving ample room for a second 
story in case of a flood. 
I now made praparation to enter upon the business of 
my excursion, that of spearing muskrats. I was not long 
in putting on my mufflers and getting ready for the on- 
slaught; and, as this was my first attempt at spearing, 
I was full of enthusiasm. With feelings of interest and 
excitement, I marched up to a large house very cautiously 
(for,' with the least jar or crack of the ice, away goes 
your game) , and, with uplifted spear, made ready for a 
thrust. I hesitated. There was a difficulty I had not 
taken into account — I knew not where to strike. The 
chances of missing the game were apparent, but there 
was no time to be lost; so bang! went the spear into a 
hard, frozen mass, penetrating it not more than three 
or four inches, and away went the game in every direc- 
tion. With feelings of some chagrin I withdrew my 
spear, and began feeling about for a more vulnerable 
spot, which I. was not long in detecting. It being a cold, 
freezing day, I discovered an accumulation of white frost 
on a certain spot of the house, and putting my spear on 
the place I found it readily entered. The mystery was 
solved at once; this frost on the outside of the house 
was caused by the breath and heat of the animals imme- 
diately beneath it, and it was generally on the southeast 
side of the center of the house, this being the warmest 
side. Acting on these discoveries, I made another trial, 
and was successful ; and now the sport began in good 
earnest. Whenever I made a successful thrust, I would 
cut a hole through the wall of the house with my hatchet 
and take out the game, close up the hole, and start for 
another house. The remaining members of the family 
would soon return and immediately set about repairing 
the breach. I sometimes succeeded in pinning two rats 
at one thrust. I also became quite expert in taking game 
in another way, as follows: Whenever I made an un- 
successful thrust into a house, the rats would dive into 
the water through their paths or runways, and disap- 
pear in all directions. I now found I could easily drive 
my one-tined spear through the ice two inches thick and 
pin a rat with considerable certainty, which very much 
increased the sport, and I was not long in securing a pile 
of fifteen or twenty rats. 
Here I made a discovery of what, until now, had been 
a mystery to me, namely, how a muskrat managed to 
remain so long a time in the water under the ice without 
drowning. The muskrat, I perceived, on leaving his 
house inhaled a full breath, and would then stay under 
water as long as he could without breathing; when he 
would rise up with his nose against the ice and breathe 
out his breath, which seemed to displace the water, form- 
ing a bubble. I could distinctly see him breathe this 
bubble in and out several times, and then dive again. In 
this way I have chased them about under the ice for 
some time before capturing them. I do not know how 
|ong the muskrat could live under the ice, bu\ I have) 
heard of their having been seen crossing large bays and 
rivers^ under the ice five miles from shore. I saw a man 
in Illinois who told me he chased two otters under the 
ice for three-quarters of an hour, trying to kill them with 
his ax, and finally lost them; which goes to show that 
these animals, as well as the muskrat, can live under the 
ice a long time. 
As I frequently speared the muskrat on his feeding 
bed, and subsequently found it to be the best and surest 
place to set a trap for him, I will, for the benefit of the 
novice, undertake to describe one as found in the 
marshes. A feeding bed is a place where the muskrat 
goes to feed, generally at night, and is frequently many 
rods from his house. Here he selects a place where his 
food is convenient, and by the. aid of the refuse material 
of the roots, etc., which he carries here for food, he ele- 
vates himself partly out of water, in a sort of hut. Here 
he sits and eats his food, and at the slightest noise, or 
least appearance of danger, disappears in an instant under 
water. In the winter these feeding places are readily 
discovered by a bunch of wadded grass, flag, or some 
other material about the size of a man's hat protruding 
above the ice. This little mound is hollow, and is only 
large enough for a single rat, where he sits and eats his 
food, with his lower parts in the water. When the rats 
were disturbed in their house, I found they generally fled 
to these feeding huts, where they were almost a certain 
mark for the spearman. 
Finding I had taken as many rats as I could con- 
veniently strip before they became frozen, I set about the 
work of skinning, and after an hour and a half of pretty 
cold work I bagged my skins, put on my skates, and 
started for the city, well satisfied with my first day's 
excursion. 
In my next excursion, not many days after, to the 
same place, I had still better success. As the ice had 
now become too thick to be easily penetrated by my 
spear, I adopted, in part, a different mode of taking the 
game. This time I carried with me, in addition to my 
spear, two dozen steel traps and a bundle of willow 
sticks (cut on the way) about three feet long. On arriv- 
ing at the hunting grounds I prepared myself for the 
day's sport by putting on my mufflers, and with traps 
and willow sticks slung upon my back began the work 
by driving my spear into the first house I came to. I 
could not now see the rats as they fled from the house 
on account of the thickness of the ice and a slight snow 
that lay upon it. Consequently the sport of spearing 
them through the ice was cut off. But as often as I had 
occasion to cut through the walls of the house to take 
out my game, I set a steel trap in the nest, slipped a 
willow stick through the ring of the chain, laid it across 
the hole, slightly stopped it up, and then passed on to the 
next house; and so on, until my traps were all gone. 
I then started back to the place of beginning, driving my 
spear into . every feeding hut in my course, and 
killing many rats. Finally I began going over 
the ground again, first driving my spear into 
a house, then examining the trap, taking out the 
game, and re-setting the trap. In this course I was 
quite successful. I found by setting the trap in the right 
place, near the edge, and a little under the water, I was 
almost certain to take the first rat that returned. In 
making two or three rounds in this way, I found the rats 
became somewhat disturbed, and sought temporary shel- 
ter elsewhere ; when I would move to a new place, giving 
them time to recover from their fright. 
I think this a very profitable method of trapping the 
muskrat, especially in an open winter. It very much 
lengthens the season of trapping, which is quite an im- 
portant consideration with the trapper. Another con- 
sideration is, the trapper may set his traps and allow 
them to remain many days, if not convenient to go 
to them, and be sure his fur will take no harm; as the 
rat on being caught in the trap dives into the water, and 
is soon drowned, and will not spoil for a long time at 
this season of the year, and is also secure from frost. 
I will here state that I found a muskrat house to con- 
tain from four to nine rats. I have caught as many as 
nine from one house. Possibly some may contain a 
greater number than this. I concluded that these colonies 
must be the progeny of a single rat in one season, or, 
for aught I know, at a single litter. 
In these winter excursions I sometimes captured 
several minks, which I found somewhat different from 
the mink of the Eastern States, being much larger, and 
of a lighter brown color and coarser fur. I sometimes 
found them occupying muskrat houses, from which they 
had driven or destroyed the muskrats, of the flesh of 
which they are very fond. They are a gross feeding, 
carnivorous animal. I have found stored up in muskrat 
houses which they inhabited, from a peck to half a bushel 
of fish in all stages of decay, and some freshly caught 
and alive ; which is good evidence that they are not only 
gross feeders, but good fishers also. I was most success- 
ful in taking the mink in steel traps, baiting with musk- 
rat flesh or fish, and setting my traps about the marshes 
and along the banks of streams and rivers. A mink will 
seldom pass a bait without taking or smelling at it; and 
by placing the bait a little beyond the trap, in such a 
position that he must pass over the trap in order to reach 
it, you are pretty sure of him. I also caught them by 
setting the trap in the mouth of their dens and in hollow 
logs, and sometimes enjoyed the sport of digging them 
out of the river bank. 
In setting my traps for mink and raccoon, I was some- 
what annoyed by the prairie wolf taking the bait, but still 
more by the skunks getting into the traps. The country 
at this time abounded with these animals. They seemed 
to be nearly as plenty as the minks. I have sometimes 
found as many as two or three in my traps on a morning. 
It was an easy matter enough to dispatch one, but to do 
it and not get my trap scented was not so easy. (Here 
•let me say I never knew one caught in a trap to dis- 
charge at all until disturbed by the approach of man.) 
After trying several unsuccessful plans, I hit upon one 
that I thought would do the business. Putting a tremen- 
dous charge of powder and ball into my rifle, I ap- 
proached my antagonist as near as I could without draw- 
ing his fire, and placing the muzzle of my rifle within 
three feet of his head, blazed away, and blew his head 
clean off. I approached the carcass for the purpose of 
taking off my trap (congratulating myself on my good 
success), when he made a sudden convulsive movement, 
and oh, horror! such a discharge of the genuine article 
no man ever saw or smelt ! However, by a quick move- 
ment I escaped the charge myself, but my trap, as usual, 
was thoroughly perfumed. I soon had an opportunity 
to try again, and this time I succeeded, by the following 
device : _ Watching my opportunity when the skunk 
turned his eyes from me, I dealt him a heavy blow acrossi 
the back with a long club, and immediately loosened the 
trap from off his leg. In this way I ever after managed 
to keep clear from scent, with a single exception, which 
occurred as follows: 
In one of my excursions, accompanied by another per- 
son, the dog scented something under the floor of an old 
shanty, which we concluded must be a mink; so at it we 
went, tearing up the floor to give the dog a chance to 
get at the animal. Up came one plank after another in 
quick succession, when all at once the dog made a tre- 
mendous lunge right into the midst of a nest of seven 
nearly full grown skunks. In less than a minute the at- 
mosphere was blue with the most horrible stench ever 
encountered by human olfactories. The dog was soon 
nearly choked and blinded by the showers of stifling 
spray that met him at every charge, and, for the time 
being, all were obliged to beat a hasty retreat into the 
open air. But as we were all now fairly in for it, we 
concluded to make another charge and finish up the work 
we had so enthusiastically begun; and, armed each with 
a long club, we returned to the fray, and, with the help 
of the dog, soon despatched the foe, and retreated to the 
windward to get clear of the stench. But it was of no 
use. I seemed to be scented through and through; my 
very breath seemed to be hot with the terrible miasma^ 
and for several days I could scarcely taste or smell any- 
thing but skunk. This was my most serious encounter 
with the skunk family, though I continued to be an- 
noyed by their getting into my traps; and once, at the 
suggestion of a fur dealer that their skins were worth 
fifty cents apiece, undertook the job of saving a lot; but 
after skinning five, gave up the business in disgust. 
My next excursion was a short but rather exciting one. 
In consequence of a slight thaw a day or two previous 
to my setting out, the skating on the river was nearly 
spoiled. I was therefore obliged to travel most of the 
way on land, and on foot, taking nearly all day to get 
to my place of destination. I put up for the night at a 
tavern a mile or two from the part of marsh where I 
intended to trap, which was at the end opposite to the 
theatre of my previous excursions, and near the Aux- 
plaines River. The next morning after breakfast I started 
out for the hunt, and, on arriving at the marsh, to my 
surprise not a muskrat house could be seen, with the 
exception of the very tops of three or four. The rest were 
all under water and the water frozen over. At first I 
was unable to divine the cause of this unusual rise in the 
water; but subsequently ascertained that an ice dam had 
formed in the river three-fourths of a mile below, in con- 
sequence of the breaking up of the ice above, and had 
set the water back over this part of the marsh to the 
depth of nearly four feet. The muskrats were completely 
drowned out, and I now saw them huddled together in 
numerous squads upon the newly formed ice all over the 
marsh, having already brought up portions of their sub- 
merged dwellings, with which they had built up slight 
walls to shelter themselves from the cold northwest wind. 
This was an exciting scene to the trapper— a multitude 
of his game in full view ! I became almost nervous with 
excitement. But how to get at them was the question. 
On going down to the water, I found it scarcely frozen 
along the shore, though it looked firmer further out. To 
be sure, I could reach many of the muskrats with my 
rifle; but what was the use if I could not get them after 
I had killed them? However, something must be done. 
I couldn't stand this sight anyhow. I set about devising 
some plan by which I might reach the game in person. 
A half dozen plans were presented to my mind in as 
many minutes. One plan was to place a board on the 
ice, get on it, and shove myself along by placing the 
point of my sharp spear on the ice ; but, on further con- 
sideration, I concluded this would be too slow an opera- 
tion. If I succeeded in getting out on the ice, the rats 
could easily keep out of my way, as I should not be 
able to leave my board. Another plan was to fasten a 
piece of board a foot square to each foot ; but, on further, 
thought, this plan was also abandoned as being unsafe. 
Although the water did not exceed four feet in depth 
down to the old ice, yet, in case I broke through, the 
boards might operate to keep my heels up and my head 
down. I now determined to test the real strength of the 
ice; and, procuring a piece of slab twelve or fourteen 
feet long, I shoved it off on the ice. Leaving one end! 
resting on the shore and walking on this, I stepped off 
upon tie ice. It barely held my weight, and soon began 
to settle, so that the water came upon the ice. However, 
I came to the conclusion that if I could get upon the ice 
with my skates on, and keep constantly under pretty 
good headway, it would hold me up. Stripping off all 
extra clothing, and laying aside every unnecessary 
weight, I strapped on my skates, and, with spear in hand, 
launched forth in pursuit of the game. The ice bent and 
waved before me, but I glided swiftly on, and in less 
than a minute was among the muskrats. 
I now discovered that the rats kept a hole open through 
the ice, right above their house, and before I got within 
striking distance they dove into the water and disap- 
peared. I could hear them snuffing up against the ice, 
but could not see them on account of a slight sprinkling 
of snow which covered the ice. As soon as I left for 
another place, they would come up again through the 
holes on the ice. I saw that, in order to get a chance to 
strike them, I must wait at the holes for them to return 
for a fresh supply of air. This I found rather tedious, 
as I was obliged to keep constantly in motion, running 
in a circuit around the hole, on account of the weakness 
of the ice. In this way I would have to wait several min- 
utes, and, when one did return to breathe, he was so very 
quick I found it difficult to hit him; and I also found, 
where the holes were not a great way apart, that when £ 
went to one hole the rats would dive and swim to an- 
other. This would not do. I must try another expedient? 
and, returning to the shore, I took from my knapsack a' 
dozen steel traps and a handful of willow sticks, threw 
them on the ice, and then started back. Picking up in 
