492 
FOREST AND STREAM. 
[April i, 1911- 
streak and left me to miss him twice as he 
vanished over the hill, and regret that I had 
not taken my chance when I had it. In replac¬ 
ing my ride I disturbed the sheath in some way, 
so that 1 lost the rifle and had to go back for 
it with Eieno. Thus when we descended into 
the desert we were a mile behind the rest of 
the party. What a sight met our eyes! Be¬ 
fore us the desert seemed to be a great lake of 
sparkling water. The shore was about a mile 
away, and as we looked, the pack train came 
to it and began to wade into the water. I could 
hardly believe that an illusion could be so per¬ 
fect, and that it was only a mirage. I got out 
the glasses and iooked at the scene through them. 
I could see the lake and the little waves at the 
edge and our pack train and riders solemnly 
wading through water about up to the knees of 
the animals. It was a most wonderful mirage, 
and as I watched the edge of the water recede 
as we advanced across the desert, I imagined the 
feelings of some wanderer dying of thirst who 
sought to reach the water lying always a half 
’ mile in front of his eager feet. 
At last we reached the irrigation ditch on the 
other side of the desert and pushed along it to 
the ranch and Calexico. I shot and killed a duck 
to give Senor Munos, and also to end the trip 
with a kill and not with a miss. When we 
reached Calexico, we were surprised to find that 
the United States had almost been at war with 
Mexico, and that American citizens and the 
American ambassador had been mobbed in the 
city of Mexico. We, however, had been in no 
danger at that time! as we saw no one 
save one or two Indians since we had left 
Calexico. 
The experience of J. G. M. shou.d give cour¬ 
age to all big-game hunters when luck breaks 
against them. It may turn at the last moment, 
and the prize you have labored in vain to se¬ 
cure may be waiting for you as you forlornly 
turn your back on the hunting grounds and start 
on your journey toward civilization. 
One thing about the trip has caused me much 
speculation. I saw J. G. M.’s two rams at about 
equal distances and in each case I spent fully 
half an hour studying them through the glass. 
The ram which he eventually killed appeared to 
me to have a small insignificant head which I 
thought would be about fourteen inches in diam¬ 
eter and twenty-seven or twenty-eight inches in 
length, yet when the ram was finally secured, it 
proved to be an enormous head with a base 
measurement of sixteen and one-quarter inches 
and a length of three feet. Now the ram I saw 
at Las Palmitas even at a distance looked like 
an enormous head, and if his actual size was 
also larger than it appeared, he must have been 
beyond my dreams of record heads. I only hope 
he will continue to grow and wait patiently till 
I return to Lower California. 
[conclusion.] 
The most interesting and unique situation 
Flying Squirrels and Muskrats. 
Concluded from page 453. 
The muskrat is the most valuable fur-beaiing 
animal in the region under consideration and 
perhaps in the State, and since these obser\a- 
tions were made the rise in the price of musk¬ 
rat fur has of course made them still more im¬ 
portant. Their nests or houses are built in a 
variety of places, and the sites chosen for 
some of them are odd enough. Usually built 
in shallow water along the shores of ponds or 
even at some distances from the shore, where 
the water is shoal enough and the building ma¬ 
terial is convenient, they sometimes choose very 
different situations for their houses. 
“While these are the usual places where the 
muskrat build their houses, now and then a 
house is found in some quiet unusual and un¬ 
expected place. Among these are the cross¬ 
timbers under the piers at the cottages about 
the lake. Dec. 24, 1900, a completed nest was 
found resting cosily on cross-timbers under the 
pier at the Lakeview Hotel. Though not large, 
this nest was compactly built. It was composed 
almost wholly of [the plant] chara, and was 
a foot or more above the surface of the water. 
Nov. 2, 1904, another nest was found in a sim¬ 
ilar situation on cross-timbers at the distal end 
of the Culver depot pier. This nest was quite 
large and composed chiefly of chara. When 
disturbed the owners of these nests would drop 
quietly into the water and swim away. 
“Toward the last of October, 1904. a nest was 
found on the seat of an abandoned boat near 
Murray’s. This nest was newly built and con¬ 
sisted chiefly of chara and scirpus stems. 
Later, when the lake froze over it was deserted. 
Still another nest was found on the top of a 
tree that had fallen into the lake, and yet an¬ 
other on the boughs of a broken tree that ex¬ 
tended into the water. 
selected by a muskrat for its house ever seen 
by us was a large drygoods box which a duck- 
hunter had anchored in Outlet Bay for use as a 
blind from which to shoot ducks. The box was 
anchored some distance from shore with the 
open side toward the shore. Bushes with leaves 
still on were stuck in the lake about the box 
to aid in concealing the gunner and his boat, 
a half-inch manila rope being used to hold the 
box at anchor. On visiting the blind one morn¬ 
ing in October more than a peck of fresh wet 
chara was found in the box. 1 he amount was 
increased each night for the next few days 
until it consisted of more than a bushel of ma¬ 
terial, almost wholly chara. One morning the 
box was missing and the next day it was found 
on the east side of the lake, where it had evi¬ 
dently been drifted by the wind. An examina¬ 
tion of the anchor rope disclosed the fact that 
it had been gnawed in two by the muskrat itself, 
which thus set its own home adrift." 
The food of the muskrat is something about 
which in the past there has been much discus¬ 
sion. Certain observers have declared that they 
were purely vegetarian, while others better in¬ 
formed have declared that they ate mussels and 
possibly other animal food. Nevertheless the 
paper in question gives a lot of novel informa¬ 
tion which many of our readers will be glad to 
see. 
“During the summer the muskrats appear to 
subsist almost wholly on vegetable matter. In 
the early fall they sometimes make foraging 
trips to nearby gardens where they commit 
depredations on the carrots, parsnips, beets, 
turnips, and other succulent vegetables. They 
also eat the seeds as well as the stems and roots 
of the yellow and white pond lilies. They gnaw 
the bark from the roots and stems of swamp 
loosestrife and the buttonbush. Later in the fall 
and during the winter animal food enters more 
largely into their menu. We have found them 
feeding on dead coots and ducks that had drifted 
ashore or which, wounded by some gunner, had 
escaped among the weeds and sedges fringing 
the lake. They also feed on turtles of various 
species, which they find dead, or which they 
themselves may kill. On several occasions we 
have found partly devoured turtles under cir¬ 
cumstances which left no doubt as to what had 
been feeding on them. Dec. 11, I 9 ° 4 , several 
dead painted turtles and a few musk turtles 
were found near Morris Inlet lying on their 
backs on the snow or ice, with the flesh wholly 
or partly devoured, and muskrat tracks leading . 
to and from them and all about. The most im¬ 
portant element of the winter food of the musk¬ 
rat, however, is the fresh water mussels or 
Unionidae. At various places along the shore, 
wherever an object projects out into the water, 
such as a log or pier, or fallen treetop, there 
will be found in autumn or early winter a pile 
of mussel shells were muskrats have been feed¬ 
ing. These piles are frequently of considerable 
size, containing sometimes a bushel or more of 
shells. Sept. 24, 1907, one of these piles on 
Long Point was examined. It was off shore 
several feet and in water eighteen inches deep. 
About one-half of the shells were examined criti¬ 
cally and counted. There were 53 2 shells repre¬ 
senting four species. 
“During the fall these operations are prob¬ 
ably confined to mussels which they find in shal¬ 
low water near shore. In winter, however, 
when ice-cracks form and extend well across 
the lake, the muskrats go far out on the ice. 
dive through the cracks and bring up mussels 
which they eat sitting on the ice. At such times 
they get mussels at considerable distances from 
shore. In the first days of January, 1905. a 
broad crack formed in the ice from Long Point 
to the Norris boathouse. On Jan. 4, a musk¬ 
rat was seen at the edge of this crack about 
