d States, so that the all-fur coat is in greater demand than
the fur-lined; but in Canada, not less than 2,000,000 musk-rat furs are
taken every year. In the United States the total is close on 4,000,000.
In one city alone, St. Paul, 50,000 musk-rat-skins are cured every year.
A single stretch of good marsh ground has yielded that number of skins
year after year without a sign of the hunt telling on the prolific
little musquash. Multiply 50,000 by prices varying from 7 cents to 75
cents and the value of the musk-rat-hunt becomes apparent.

What is the secret of the musk-rat's survival while the strong creatures
of the chase like buffalo and timber-wolf have been almost exterminated?
In the first place, settlers can't farm swamps; so the musk-rat thrives
just as well in the swamps of New Jersey to-day as when the first white
hunter set foot in America. Then musquash lives as heartily on owls and
frogs and snakes as on water mussels and lily-pads. If one sort of food
fails, the musk-rat has as omnivorous powers of digestion as the bear
and changes his diet. Then he can hide as well in water as on land. And
most important of all, musk-rat's family is as numerous as a cat's, five
to nine rats in a litter, and two or three litters a year. These are the
points that make for little musquash's continuance in spite of all that
shot and trap can do.

Having discovered what the dank whiff, half animal, half vegetable,
signified, the trapper sets about finding the colony. He knows there is
no risk of the little still-hunter carrying alarm to the other
musk-rats. If he waits, it is altogether probable that the fleeing
musk-rat will come up and swim straight for the colony. On the other
hand, the musk-rat may have scurried overland through the rushes.
Besides, the trapper observed tracks, tiny leaf-like tracks as of little
webbed feet, over the soft clay of the marsh bank. These will lead to
the colony, so the trapper rises and parting the rushes not too noisily,
follows the little footprint along the margin of the swamp.

Here the track is lost at the narrow ford of an inflowing stream, but
across the creek lies a fallen poplar littered with--what? The feathers
and bones of a dead owlet. Balancing himself--how much better the
moccasins cling than boots!--the trapper crosses the log and takes up
the trail through the rushes. But here musquash has dived off into the
water for the express purpose of throwing a possible pursuer off the