March 9, 1912 
FOREST AND STREAM 
301 
when, unfortunately for it, its fur seems to be 
at the best, and at that time many of the young 
are needlessly slaughtered and sold in the fur- 
market for a small sum as muskrat “pups.” How 
long this interesting little denizen of the wet 
lands will survive, now that Dame Fashion has 
stamped its fur with the seal of her approval, 
remains to be seen. Its pelt, plucked of the 
guard hairs and properly treated and dyed, is 
offered to the public as “Hudson seal,” “electric 
seal” and under many equally misleading noms 
de plume at extravagant prices. 
The claim has been made, and often on seem¬ 
ingly good authority, that the muskrat at times 
assumes a most bloodthirsty aggressiveness and 
has even been known to seek and devour flesh. 
Many tales of adventure have come from solitary 
hunters marooned in the center of some dismal 
swamp where they claimed they had been sur¬ 
rounded and attacked by hordes of these savage 
little animals. Again have been published still 
close up beneath its icy cap, the muskrat is 
pressed for air in its wanderings, and it is said 
at such times to rise and expel its breath against 
the under surface of the ice. A bublile is in¬ 
stantly formed and filled with oxygen, and this 
the muskrat sucks hack into its lungs and pro¬ 
ceeds again on its course until compelled to re¬ 
peat the experiment. 
The laws of a muskrat colony seem to almost 
exactly coincide with those of a beaver colony 
under like conditions. When the family increases 
to such an extent that the lodge is overcrowded, 
we find the younger generation wandering off 
“in search for pastures new.” This restricted 
migration takes place late in the summer or at 
the beginning of autumn. Forsaking the home 
grounds, the pioneers travel slowly along through 
the woods until they find a place to their fancy; 
there they make camp and proceed with the 
building of their home. It is presumably this 
habit that accounts for the wide distrilnition of 
face exposed. The Ir'nd feet, which are slightly 
webbed, also help materially its rapid progres¬ 
sion through the water. 
Apparently muskrats have favorite landing 
spots along the shore where they bring their 
food to be eaten at leisure and to which they 
resort for fun and frolic. One of the prettiest 
sights it has ever been my lot to see was wit¬ 
nessed on a mountain lake at sunset, when an 
old muskrat and her two young swam noise¬ 
lessly to one of these landing places, and climb¬ 
ing from the golden-tinted water, the mother 
with her mouth full of edible water plants, par¬ 
took of a dainty meal and then indulged in kit¬ 
tenish play. 
Whether muskrats are a menace to breeding 
waterfowl is a question that for some time has 
agitated the minds of sportsmen. Like its near 
relative, the common house rat, which often 
proves so destructive to the eggs and young of 
domestic folws, the muskrat, I am inclined to 
HOUSE EUILT OF SODS, MUD AND WEED STALKS. 
LARGE DEAVER-LIKE ABODE OF THE MUSKRAT. 
more gruesome accounts of the finding of bodies 
of unfortunate wanderers, which have been part¬ 
ly devoured by these rodents. There is a pos¬ 
sibility that these charges may in some cases be 
true, and perhaps goaded on by hunger, induced 
by a scarcity of their normal food supply, the 
muskrats may have turned with avidity to the 
opportunity before them. These are extravagant 
claims, however, and need much substantiating 
evidence to prove them. I have several times 
seen muskrats swim out and attack the bodies of 
dead ducks floating quietly on the water some 
distance from a blind. 
Very similar to the castor sacs of the beaver 
are the two glands attached to the inside of the 
leg of the muskrat which especially in the spring 
give off the strong musky odor from which the 
animal derives its name. At this time the whole 
pelt of the creature becomes strongly impregnated 
with the not unpleasant odor, and in handling 
skins at such times the trapper soon finds his 
person strongly scented with the perfume. 
In the winter these semi-aquatic mammals 
spend most of the time, like their larger cousins, 
swimming about and gathering food in the water 
beneath the ice. The freshwater mussel seems 
to be particularly acceptable to the muskrat, and 
vast quantities of shells in and about the houses 
give evidence of feasts in which this bivalve has 
figured prominently on the menu. Often, espe¬ 
cially when the pond is high and the water rises 
the muskrat over our land. From the Gulf 
States to the arctic prairies is the compass of 
its range with slight variations. Then, too, .as 
in the beaver colony, we find individuals, ban¬ 
ished from the main village, living alone in small 
houses of their own. Whether their exile and 
solitary existence are voluntary or compulsory 
is difficulty to ascertain. 
The cabins erected by muskrats are of two 
different types. Some are built entirely of sods, 
mud and weed stalks, and these are usually 
placed directly on a muddy flat or strip of 
marshland. Others, and they are the ones which 
most closely resemble those of the beaver, are 
composed of larger sticks and small logs and are 
almost invariably started on a sort of founda¬ 
tion made of upturned roots and tangled limbs, 
the whole intricate affair wedged firmly between 
willows or other’ small trees at the edge of the 
water. This type of house is generally the larger 
and more pretentious affair and seems to offer 
evidence of a superior grade of workmanship 
over that displayed in the creation of the smaller, 
more primitive abode. The accompanying photo¬ 
graphs show very clearly the two types of lodges 
erected by muskrats. 
Like the beaver, the muskrat does much of its 
building under cover of darkness. However, it 
may be found abroad at all hours of the day and 
seems particularly active just about sunset. It 
swims rapidly along with the top of its head and 
believe, would gladly avail itself of the contents 
of any nest with which its wandering footsteps 
brought it in contact. However, “there is much 
of good in the worst of us, and much of bad 
in the best of us,” which is no doubt equally 
true of the muskrat. At any rate there are no 
great crimes laid at its door, and so let us toler¬ 
ate and study these interesting little sharp-eyed- 
people of the marshes. From most of the land 
the beaver has disappeared, and to the growing 
generation its instructive habits will be, by force 
of circumstances, unknown and unlearned. 
However, its cousin, the muskrat, still remains 
close at hand for our observation, and by visit¬ 
ing its haunts and stopping at its skillfully con¬ 
structed lodges, we may even yet learn much of 
the beaver’s mode of life. 
So much has been said in favor of poaching 
by some of our public men, says the British 
Shooting Times, that the rising generation will 
soon begin to think that it is a royal road to 
success. Our Chancellor of the Exchequer some 
time ago boasted of having been a poacher, and 
a few days ago Sheriff Campbell Smith, who 
was being entertained at a public dinner, said 
in reply to the toast of the evening that it had 
been stated that he had been lenient to poachers. 
The first night he spent out was with a band of 
poachers, and one of them afterward became a 
sculptor and the other a Baptist minister. 
