FIBER ZIBETHICUS. 
183 
on the southeast side of the centre 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. When- 
ever I made a 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 be- 
came quite expert in taking the game in another way, as follows : 
Whenever I made an unsuccessful thrust into a house, the rats would 
dive into the water through their paths or run-ways, and disappear 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 perceiv- 
ed, 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, forming a bubble. I could dis- 
tinctly see him breathe his 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. 
“ 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 musk- 
rat 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, &c., which he 
carries here for food, he elevates himself partly out of water, in a sort 
