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ice, pond lily roots, sweet corn and pumpkin, and will eat almost all kinds of vegetables. It will be seen that in captivity the food problem would be easily solved. They are very fond of wild rice, and those who have ponds suitable for muskrats and are contemplating the raising of these animals would do well to sow them with wild rice. The rice may be obtained from almost any of the seed houses and it will grow in six or eight feet of water. They are also fond of pumpkins and it is a cheap and satisfactory food. Some of them will lay up stores of food for winter, but they do not all do this. Where the streams are rapid they can get out to hunt for food at almost all times, and where they are located on lakes and marshes that freeze over in winter they can find plenty of food in the water under the ice. This food is taken to the feed bed to be eaten. In early spring the warmth from their bodies will sometimes thaw a hole through the ice over the bed and the muskrat stops this hole with grass roots, etc. The trapper is looking for just such places and it is the bunch of grass roots on the ice that gives them away. The steel trap is soon in place, awaiting the coming of the animal, and many of them are trapped in this way. The breeding habits of the muskrat are different from those of other fur-bearing animals, as they will have three litters in a season. The first are born in April, and there will be from six to nine young. It is claimed that the female of the first litter will also bear young that season and this accounts for the small rats, or kits, caught during the fall season. It would appear from this that the animals should increase in numbers very rapidly, but they have many enemies other than man, and perhaps one-half of the muskrats born in a season never reach maturity. With the exception of man, their greatest enemies are the birds of prey, such as owls, hawks, buzzards, etc., but chiefly the owl, as it is a nocturnal bird and has a fine opportunity to capture the unwary. The fox frequently makes a capture, as does also the mink and otter. It is a deplorable fact that there is a large proportion of small animals in the trapper's catch. These are the young muskrats, for while they grow rapidly the first summer, it requires several years for them to attain full size, yet they class as No. 1 the first season. The old animals are larger and their fur is more valuable than that of the young. For those
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