Musk rat

“ The musk rat or musquash builds a dwelling near the banks of ponds or swamps to shelter it from the bitter cold of the winter, but never on land, always on the ice, as soon as it is firm enough, taking care to keep a hole open to admit it to dive for its food, which chiefly consists of the roots of grass or arums. It sometimes happens in very cold winters that the holes communicating with their dwellings under the water are so blocked by ice that they cannot break through them. When this is the case, and they have no provisions left in the house, they begin to eat one another. ”

“ Traps are of little use in capturing these creatures; and if one is captured, that trap is for ever useless as regards ordinary rats and mice, which won’t approach it after being contaminated. ‘Muskies’ are omnivorous and very voracious. During the rains, the insect world is on the wing. If at this season you place a night-light on the ground near the beat of a musk-rat, you will be amused at watching its antics in trying to catch some of the buzzers round the light, or those crawling up the wall, and will be surprised at its agility. ”

“ Musquash in the spring is said to be tender and toothsome, but that overpowering smell of musk proved too much for our determination. You may break, you may shatter the rat if you will, but the scent of the musk-rose will cling to it still. There is a limit to every one's scientific research, and, personally, until insistent hunger gnaws at my vitals and starvation looms round the edge of the next iceberg, I draw the line at muskrat and am not ashamed to say so. Compelling is the association of ideas, and the thought grips one that muskrat must taste as domestic rats (are rats domestic?) ”

“ Animals of aquatic habits, when caught in traps, invariably plunge at once into deep water, and it is the object of the trapper, availing himself of this plunge, to drown his captive as soon as possible, in order to avoid his violence, and keep him out of the reach of other animals. The weight of the trap and chain is usually sufficient for this purpose in the case of the musk rat. ”

“ Though they occasionally eat fish and other animal food, yet in general they feed very clean, and when fat are good eating, particularly when nicely singed, scalded, and boiled. They are easily tamed, and soon grow fond; are very cleanly and playful, and smell exceedingly pleasant of musk; but their resemblance to a Rat is so great that few are partial to them. Indeed the only difference between them and a common Rat, exclusive of their superior size, is, that their hind-feet are large and webbed, and the tail, instead of being round, is flat and scaly. ”

“ In India, the shrew-mice attain to the size of ordinary rats, and are there also called musk-rats, from the fact that a strong odour of musk is exhaled by them—so strong as to make the place through which the animal passes exceedingly disagreeable. ”

“ Musk-Rats
have very strong teeth, and can use them on wood effectively, so it is wise to protect all corners and cracks in your wooden traps with pieces of tin or sheet-iron. They have good noses, and can smell an apple a long distance off. Place your traps in the shallow water at the edge of the mill-pond or stream inhabited by these rats, and they will doubtless find it without difficulty.
Young musk-rats are very gentle and playful, and may be handled without fear; they do not grow fierce with age if reared in captivity and accustomed to gentle treatment.
Fig. 20.—The Tin Box-Trap. ”

“ Yes, my lady, in the spring months the hunters and Indians reckon them good food. I have eaten them myself, but I did not like them, they were too fat. Musk-rats build a little house of rushes, and plaster it, they have two chambers, and do not lie torpid, they build in shallow, rushy places in lakes but in spring they quit their winter houses and are often found in holes among the roots of trees. They live on mussels and shell fish. The fur is used in making caps, and hats, and fur gloves. ”

“ Musk rats, which abound in many of the shallow lakes and river bottoms of America, are either speared through the walls of their winter houses by trappers who travel over the ice in pursuit of them, or captured in steel traps of the description already spoken of. ”

“ That very same evening Phil made his way to the home of the Musk Rats, or Ondatras. As he neared the creek the Beaver had pointed out to him, he saw a number of animals the size of big rats, with tails that were almost as long as their bodies, swimming hither and thither, and leaving trails of silver behind them. ”

“ I noticed now a faint odour of musk, and was glad to think that these pattering feet belonged to musk-rats, and that these animals must have entered through the drain hole I had observed in the outer wall of the bathroom. I dislike rats, and especially rats in a bedroom. This prejudice was not made less when I felt that some of them were climbing up on to the bed. ”

“ One of these takes from one hundred and fifty to two hundred musk-rats in a year, and even thirty-six have been shot by one man in a day. Their fur, which is not nearly as valuable as formerly, is in good condition in the winter and spring only; and upon the breaking up of the ice, when they are driven out of their holes by the water, the greatest number is shot from boats, either swimming or resting on their stools, or slight supports of grass and reeds, by the side of the stream. ”

“ Up above, in the open air, they are to be seen in swarms sharing our watchfulness. This gun-shaken valley is honeycombed with their little round funk-holes, into which they flash at any sudden noise. It is merely going downstairs where we are all at home.
The social instincts of the rat are less highly developed. His visible visits to the mess are rarer, but we overhear his conversation in his tunnels that open on our shelves, the patter of his pink feet across the canvas overhead, and the muscular squirming of his body in some tight place about the sandbag wainscot. ”

“ Mice are the best known of the rodents, which only too often do a great deal of harm by their predatory habits. Of these the domestic mouse (Mus musculus) , a swift and pretty little animal, which is very much attached to our larder provisions. Even the elephant, the largest among animals, fears this tiny rodent.
The domestic rat (Mus rattus) became known in Europe in the twelfth century, and probably emigrated from Asia. The brown rats did not appear in Europe until the eighteenth century. They are stronger than the domestic rats, which they drive away or devour. ”

“ For centuries the house mouse has been parasitic about the habitations of man, and in many places in America has spread into the surrounding country, where it holds its own in the struggle for existence with many of our native species. It is probable that its ability to live in houses also infested by the fierce brown rat is due wholly to its agility, and to the small size, which enables it to retreat through crevices too small for the rat. ”

“ Thus their increase is such, that it is possible for a single pair (supposing food to be sufficiently plentiful, and that they had no enemies to lessen their numbers) to amount at the end of two years to upwards of a million; but an insatiable appetite impels them to destroy each other; the weaker always fall a prey to the stronger; and the large male Rat, which usually lives by itself, is dreaded by those of its own species as their most formidable enemy. The Rat is a bold and fierce little animal, and when closely pursued, will turn and fasten on its assailant. ”

“ GRASS MOUSE. This Mouse is rather larger than the common Mouse, with a muff-head like a water rat, and a short club tail, looking as if the top was cut off, and has a great deal of the nature and disposition of that animal, for it eats no corn at all, but lives on grass and vegetables; being of a very harmless nature, it is a prey to other vermin, as the water rat is, (such as stoats and weasels) which are the worst enemies it has. ”

“ The presence of three generations of this animal, in the same stack, with a great number of the Mus decumanus, speaks I think decisively against the latter species destroying them.Mr. Edward Benn, who has frequently heard of the capture of black rats with white spots on their breasts, had it always described to him as being shorter in the tail than a second species of black rat, also described to him, and which was, perhaps, Mus rattus, a specimen of which, as already mentioned, he procured for me, in December, 1842. ”

“ Rats are wise, not so easily snared as mice. The natural alternative was cats--eleven of them, to be exact. Thereafter the old farm was a battleground. The big grey wharf rats, as we called them, are no mean foes for a cat. More than once I have seen them defeat a full-grown feline in pitched battle. The ferocity of the cornered rat is proverbial, and unlike many such proverbs, borne out by actuality. On several occasions, my cousin and I hastened to the aid of our feline allies with bricks and baseball bats. ”

“ The world who beat a path to Peter Manton's door in anger because he built the Better Mousetrap, returned to thank him anyway. You see, with mice being hurled backwards in time, they lived and they died in the mad rat-race in time. And America, for its trouble with more rodents than it could stand for a short period, now reaps its reward. For America is free of rats. ”

“ And then, too, there was this curious dread of the rats. Masson disliked and respected the ferocious little rodents, for he knew the danger that lurked in their flashing, needle-sharp fangs; but he could not understand the inexplicable horror which the oldsters held for deserted, rat-infested houses. He had heard vague rumours of ghoulish beings that dwelt far underground, and that had the power of commanding the rats, marshalling them like horrible armies. The rats, the old men whispered, were messengers between this world and the grim and ancient caverns far below Salem. ”

“ But what made the battle such a bloody one was that wharf rats are braver than house rats and will fight to the death when attacked. Being large, and having long, sharp teeth, more often than not they get the better of ordinary cats and dogs that are sicked on them. In less than fifteen minutes hundreds of rats had been killed, for Buster was a noted rat killer. All he did was to open his jaws, grab a rat in the middle of its back, give his head a shake and the rat's back was broken. ”

“ Of these four introduced species—for none is native to America—the brown rat is the most destructive, and, except the mouse, the most numerous and most widely distributed. Brought to America just [Pg 4] before the Revolution, it has supplanted and nearly exterminated its less robust relative the black rat; and in spite of the constant warfare of man has extended its range and steadily increased in numbers. ”

“ The spearing of the musquash is done in this wise: The rats throw up little mud-cone lodges, or houses, out from the shore, in about a foot of water. They are not unlike beaver lodges. The inside is hollow and the entrance is under water. In this resort the rats sit, huddled together, during most of the severe winter weather. The hunter, therefore, as soon as the ice will bear his weight, slides up to the rat houses, armed with a sharp, barbed, steel spear, about a foot long, let into the end of a small tamarac handle. ”

“ The safest plan for the inexperienced is to take live rats by the tip end of their tails; then they are helpless, since their own weight keeps their heads down. Mice, treated in this way, would curl up and nip their captor's fingers in a twinkling. He was a deep character, the old rat-catcher. If there were- 91 - many rats he would destroy many—but if few he would take good care to leave behind him some fine specimens for stock. ”

“ During all my life I have had a sort of instinctive antipathy to rats—I might even say a dread of them. This feeling was stronger while I was only a boy; but, although I have since encountered animals of a much more dangerous character, and fought with some, I do not remember any that ever inspired me with more fear than I have felt in coming in contact with that common and ubiquitous creature—the rat. It is a fear blended with a feeling of disgust ”

“ Now and then, however, these crab-like creatures assumed the form of rats; and then my dream more resembled reality. I dreamt that they were in vast numbers around me, and menaced me from every side; that I had only my jacket to keep them off, and that I was sweeping it from side to side for that purpose. I thought they grew bolder and bolder as they saw how little damage I was able to do them with such a weapon; and that a very large rat, much bigger than any of the others, was encouraging them on to the attack. This was not a real rat, but the ghost of one—of that one I had killed! ”

“ There is the foreigner, the invader, the common brown rat, who is accursed; there is the old English black rat, whom the accursed one has nearly wiped out into little more than a ghost; and there is the water-rat, who is not a rat, but a vole, and would thank you to remember the fact.
And this rat was a black rat, as black as jet, shark-jawed, star-eyed, elfin-eared, snake-tailed, lean, long-legged, and graceful—a very greyhound among the rats. He was there, in that dancing-floor of the winds by the estuary, because no common or sewer rats were there. ”