A few days later, loading some traps and kit--among which was the
hunter's bow and quiver of arrows--aboard his small canoe, Oo-koo-hoo
and I set out at sunrise and paddling around the western end of Bear
Lake, entered Bear River. It was a cold but delightful morning, and
the effect of the sun shining through the rising mist was extremely
beautiful. We were going otter- and muskrat-hunting; and as we
descended that charming little stream and wound about amid its marshy
flats and birch- and poplar-clad slopes, every once in a while ducks
startled us by suddenly whirring out of the mist. Then, when long
light lines of rippling water showed in the misty screen we knew that
they were nothing but the wakes of swimming muskrats; and soon we
glided into a colony of them; but for the time being they were not at
home--the still-rising spring freshet had driven them from their
flooded houses.

The muskrat's little island lodge among the rushes is erected upon a
foundation of mud and reeds that rises about two feet before it
protrudes above the surface of the water. The building material, taken
from round the base, by its removal helps to form a deep-water moat
that answers as a further protection to the muskrat's home. Upon that
foundation the house is built by piling upon it more reeds and mud.
Then the tunnels are cut through the pile from about the centre of the
over-water level down and out at one side of the under-water
foundation, while upon the top more reeds and mud are placed to form
the dome-shaped roof, after which the chamber inside is cleared. The
apex of the roof rises about three feet above the water. In some
localities, however, muskrats live in dens excavated in the banks of
rivers or ponds. To these dens several under-water runways lead.

Muskrats feed principally on the roots and stalks of many kinds of