/o 
■2) 
Muskrats 
regularly crosses in the same place. The first come out of 
their holes soon after sunset, if the weather is clear; 
earlier, if it be stormy or cloudy. Some evenings they 
are very bold — in fact, perfectly fearless — swimming 
about on the open water in every direction and allowing me 
to paddle past within a few yards without apparently taking 
any notice of me. At other times,however, they are so 
wary and suspicious that I do not succeed in getting so 
much as a glimpse at one, although as I round the bends 
I see the silvery furrows where they have just dived and 
everywhere ripples rolling out of the thickets of button 
bushes or willows where they have been feeding. I am quite 
unable to understand this difference in behavior or to 
correlate it with any peculiar or particular conditions of 
the weather. During the autumn Muskrats are seen abroad 
by day much less often than in spring or summer, but 
occasionally during the past month I have surprised one 
taking a sun bath in a bush when the sun was warm and the 
water cold. Only twice during this period have I heard 
them make the low murmuring sound so often given in spring 
and not once have I smelt their "musk". 
* * ****** 
,J -‘he snow revealed the presence of several Skunks 
X 
in the Ball*s Hill woods and Bensen's dog, before it came, 
killed, as I now find, no less than three in the fields 
