MAMMALIA. 
1 86 
size, and many a drowsy hunter, while floating for deer, has been 
startled by its sudden plunge. A loud report is made by striking 
the flat tail against the water. 
Dr. Richardson, writing in 1829, said that in the Fur Countries 
they were “ subject at uncertain intervals to a great mortality from 
some unknown cause. Their great fecundity, however, enables them 
to recover these losses in a very few years, although the deaths at 
times are so numerous, that a fur-post, where the Musquash is the 
principal return, is not unfrequently abandoned until they have re- 
cruited.” * Among the foes of the Muskrat may be mentioned the 
fox and mink, and the larger hawks and owls ; the mink and the 
great-horned owl being its greatest enemies. 
The flesh of the Muskrat is red and rather flabby ; still it is fair 
eating for a time when other meat is unattainable. Thomas Pennant, 
whose notions of the causes of things were sometimes strangely 
sophistical, mentions that the Muskrat feeds upon the sweet flag, and 
then goes on to say : “This perhaps gives them that strong musky 
smell these animals are so remarkable for ; which they lose during 
winter, probably when this species of plant is not to be got.” f 
Many distinguished naturalists, whose works are still regarded 
standard, give meagre and very erroneous accounts of the habits of 
the animals they describe. It is stated in the third volume of Griffith’s 
Cuvier, published in 1827, that Muskrats “ construct in winter, on the 
ice, a hut of clay, where they inhabit in great numbers, proceeding 
through a hole, to seek at the bottom the roots acorns , on which they 
subsist. When the ice closes their holes, they are reduced to feed 
upon each other ” (p. 67). It is hardly necessary to add that the 
above is fallacious in almost every particular. 
* Fauna Boreali Americana, Vol. I, 1829, p. 117. 
f Arctic Zoology, Vol. I, 1792, p. 123. 
