108 
AMERICAN AGRICULTURIST, 
[March, 
THiisU-ESuts—How They are hunted. 
The muak-rat is one of the few wild animals that are 
not driven away as the country becomes settled, and 
wherever there are streams, ponds, or other bodies of 
water, there are pretty sure to be musk rats. They are 
not pleasant neighbors, as they do much mischief, and 
demand for them, but usually the price is so low that it 
would hardly pay to hunt them for their skins alone. 
The chief reason for hunting them is on account of the 
mischief they do. They live in part upon the roots of 
water plants, and also eat the fresh-water “ clams; ” but 
they like cultivated produce also, and go out at night to 
hunt stores to lay up for winter, and lake the farmers’ 
Fig. 1.—BOTS CATCHING MUSK-BATS THROUGH THE ICE. 
as they are very sly, keeping out of sight in the day time, 
you may live where they are abundant and rarely see one. 
The musk-rat is a truly American animal, being found in 
no other country, while here it extends from the Gulf of 
Mexico away up into the Arctic regions, and from the 
Atlantic to the Pacific coasts. It belongs to the gnawing 
family -Rodents, as the naturalists call them—and is re¬ 
lated to the squirrels, beaver, rats, gophers, mice, and 
other animals with sharp front teeth, especially 
fitted for gnawing. In general shape it is like a 
large rat, the body being from 13 to 15 inches 
long, while its flattened, scaly tail is two-thirds as 
long as the body. Its general color is dark brown, 
which is lighter on the under parts. The animal 
has a strong musky odor, from which it takes its 
name. The Indians called it Musquash, a name 
by which it is knowm in many parts of the coun¬ 
try. Tlie feet are partly webbed and especially 
fitted for swimming, and the animal is much more 
at home in the water than on land ; it will dive 
and swim for a long distance under water and ap- 
pears to enjoy playing about in it. Like the 
beaver, it has two kinds of dwellings ; where the 
stream has suitable banks it makes burrows in 
these, the opening being under water; they bur¬ 
row upward from the entrance to find a place for 
their nests that shall be dry in the highest fresh¬ 
ets ; their burrows have been known to reach as 
much as 50 feet from the opening ; at the end of 
these they make their nests and lay up their stores 
for winter. But the banks of the stream do not 
always afford a safe place for winter, and where 
the shores are low and swampy, they build lmts or 
mounds of twigs, coarse grass, reeds, etc., as in 
figure 1; these extend two to four feet above the 
surface of the water, below which is the entrance, 
and in the upper part of these are soft beds of ^ 
grass, where a number of musk-rats can store 
themselves away in cold weather. It is when 
they are thus housed that musk-rats are hunted 
in winter. Yon may ask why they should be 
hunted at all, as they are not good to eat— 
but do not be so sure of that. Those who have eaten 
“the flesh say, that were it not for the name “rat,” 
they would be esteemed as food, and that a young 
and fat musk-rat is something very good. The skins are 
at times valuable, i. e., when the fashions in furs make a 
carrots, parsnips, and other roots, and even ears of corn 
to their winter quarters, and put them away for future 
use. The amount taken by them in this way can not be 
very large, and were this all the mischief they did, it 
might well be overlooked, and we would be willing to 
give them their winter’s feed for the sake of seeing them 
now and then swimming about and diving, to come up in 
some unexpected place, a long distance off But their 
sands of acres of marsh-land into cultivation, had to be 
given up on account of the musk-rats. Being mischiev¬ 
ous and injurious, they are hunted as vermin, but so pro¬ 
lific are they, that their numbers do not seem to greatly 
decrease. While the skins bring but little, yet boys, 
where they abound, find that this small sum helps their 
income, and in such localities hunting musk-rats is one 
of the winter sports on 
Saturdays and on other 
holidays. In the warm 
weather the animals are 
easily caught in steel- 
traps, or in common 
box-traps, placed just 
below the surface of the 
water where they pass 
to reach their holes. In 
some places they may 
be dug out of their bur¬ 
rows in the bank. For 
a musk-rat hunt in win¬ 
ter, several boys go to¬ 
gether, and a good dog 
is a useful member of 
the party; they need 
axes and a stout scoop- 
net fastened to a pole. 
When fresh ice has 
formed, and so clear 
that whatever is below, 
may be seen, is the 
proper time. The first 
thing to be done, is to 
find out the entrance to 
the house; to do this, 
one boy stamps upon 
the house, while the 
others watch through 
the ice, to see where 
the rats leave it; as 
there are usually several 
in one hut, the entrance 
is easily found, when a 
hole is cut in the ice at 
the proper place. Other 
houses are examined in 
the same manner, and 
holes cut for them. In 
15 or 20 minutes, or 
sooner, the animals re¬ 
turn to the house, when 
one boy puts the net 
through the hole in the Ice, and holds it at the entrance, 
while the others disturb the musk-rats once more; this 
time, in fleeing, they go into the net, three or four being 
caught at one haul; they are quickly brought to the surface, 
where the dog dispatches them. The rats are skinned, 
and the skin stretched over a board, to dry. Trappers 
generally use a bow-stretcher, which is a branch of hick¬ 
ory or other elastic wood, bent in the shape of an ox-bow 
Fig. 2.—FEMALE MUSK-RAT AND HER YOUNG. 
burrowing habits make them most destructive animals 
wherever there are embankments or dams, to hold water, 
and many a mill-dam, built at a great cost, has been ut¬ 
terly ruined by them. Some large drainage works, not. far 
from New York City, which would have brought thou 
but for muskrats and other small animals, the skins are 
brought into better shape by the use of a board. This is 
20 inches long, 6 inches wide at one end, and tapering 
to 5J inches at the other, where it is worked to a neat 
oval point, and the edges made thin and rounded. 
