Musketry

“ For the benefit of those who revolt at the muskrat as food, it is well to state that it is one of the cleanest of all creatures, that it carefully washes all its own food and in every way conducts itself so as to recommend its flesh even to the most fastidious. As a matter of fact the flesh of the muskrat, though dark, is tender and exceedingly sweet. Stewed like rabbit it looks and tastes like rabbit, save that it lacks a certain gamy flavor that some uneducated persons find an unpleasant characteristic of the latter. ”

“ The musketoes are generally very troublesome; but as they are only generated in stagnant and putrid water, it is easy to perceive that this evil is not without a remedy; because by draining the marshes, and by cultivating the land, the cause which produces them will in a great measure be removed. ”

“ Except by burrowing into and spoiling the banks, they are not productive of much evil, their food consisting principally of the roots of aquatic plants, in addition to the shell-fish. The musky odour which gives rise to their common name is caused by glandular organs placed near the tail, filled with a viscid and powerfully musky fluid, whose uses we know but little of, though it is thought to be intended as a guide by which these creatures may discover each other. ”

“ If the traps be visited and emptied during the night, two may be caught in each trap, as muskrats from other burrows may come to visit those where the traps are placed, and thus one be taken going in as well as one coming out. These animals are frequently very fat, and their flesh has a very wholesome appearance, and would probably prove good food. The musky odour, however, prejudices strongly against its use; and it is probable that the flesh is rank, as the muscles it feeds on are nauseous and bitter, and the roots which supply the rest of its food are generally unpleasant and acrid. ”

“ BEAVER RAT.
“Musk-rat, Musquash, and Ondatra are other names given to them. They have, you see, webbed feet and flattened tails, and we shall find that they carry two small glands containing the scented substance called musk. The sooner we strip off the skins the better, they will be useful for making caps.”
We went back to the house, and met Fritz and Jack just returned from their excursion, reporting that no trace of serpents, great or small, had been met with. ”

“ Most mammals have certain portions of the skin specially modified and provided with glands secreting odorous and fatty substances characteristic of the particular species. The special gland of the musk-deer, which has made the animal so well known, and has proved the cause of unremitting persecution to its possessor, is found in the male only, and is a sac about the size of a small orange, situated beneath the skin of the abdomen, the orifice being immediately in front of the preputial aperture. ”

“ That muskeg is only one of thousands, when you go seventy miles north of the Saskatchewan, sixty miles east of Athabasca Lake. That muskeg and its like, covering an area two-thirds of all Europe, is the home of all the little furs, mink and muskrat and fisher and otter and rabbit and ermine, the furs that clothe—not princes and millionaire, who buy silver fox and sea otter—but you and me and the rest of us whose object is to keep warm, not to show how much we can spend. ”

“ In assorting muskrats, buyers usually pay more attention to size and primeness of pelt than they do to the fur, because it is generally conceded that the average run of 'rat fur is good. Nature endows the muskrat with a dense coat of fur, which, in fact, is a necessity to further its welfare in the icy waters in which it lives. ”

“ The animal instincts of the muskrat are not as keenly developed as those of the designing fox or the wary mink. Unlike the beaver and otter, it is not afraid of civilization and thrives in the most thickly settled sections.
Nature in its entirety is wonderful. It is not unlike a vast panorama of charm and beauty. Here we find the ancient law — the survival of the fittest — a reality. Many people surmise the muskrat to be very uninteresting. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Genuine musk often becomes nearly inodorous by keeping, but recovers its smell on being exposed to the vapour of ammonia, or by being moistened with ammonia water. The perfumers sometimes expose it to the fetid ammoniacal effluvia of privies for the same purpose.
Pure musk, by trituration or digestion with boiling water, loses about 75% of its weight, and the boiling solution, after precipitation with nitric acid, is nearly colourless. A solution of acetate of lead, and a cold decoction of galls, also precipitate the solution; but one of corrosive sublimate does not disturb it. ”

“ Another of the little muskrats encountered fate on the threshold of his existence, being snatched by the hungry jaws of a large pickerel, which darted upon him like lightning from under the covert of a lily-pad. But in this case, vengeance was instant and direct. The big muskrat chanced to be near by. He caught the pickerel, while the latter was preoccupied with his meal, bit clean through the back of his neck, and then and there devoured nearly half of him. ”

“ I am peculiarly sensitive to smells, and dislike that of musk in particular, yet I have no objection to a musk-rat running about my room quietly if I do not startle him. I never allow one to be killed, and encourage their presence in the house, for I think the temporary inconvenience of a whiff of musk is amply repaid by the destruction of the numerous objectionable insects which lurk in the corners of Indian houses. The notion that they do damage by gnawing is an erroneous one, the mischief done by mice and rats being frequently laid to their charge ”

“ With the above facts in mind, it can be easily understood that approximately only fifty per cent of all muskrats born ever reach maturity. In spite of all this, they manage to hold their own and are found in fair numbers in the rat producing sections. ”

“ The musk present in the glands differs in appearance with the season and the age of the animal. Musk deers killed in spring have in their musk bag an unctuous soft mass of a reddish-brown color with the strongest odor; at other seasons the mass is darker in color, almost black, and granular ”

“ Junker found that the deck of the steamer on which he travelled up the Blue Nile was for some days pervaded by a musky odour after a wounded Crocodile had been despatched thereon. [44] According to Mr. Ramsay, writing on the Australian Musk-Duck (Biziura lobata) , the smell which the male emits during the summer months is confined to that sex, and in some individuals is retained throughout the year; he had never, even in the breeding season, shot a female which had any smell of musk. ”

“ The muskrats found on the streams do not build houses, but live in holes in the bank, the entrances of which are under water. The muskrat is found throughout the greater part of the United States and Canada. ”

“ GENUS MOSCHUS—THE MUSK DEER.
Canines in both sexes, very long and slender in the male; no horns; feet much cloven, with large false hoofs that touch the ground; the medium metacarpals fused into a solid cannon bone; in the skull the intermaxillaries join the nasals; hinder part of tarsus hairy; fur thick, elastic, and brittle; muffle large; no eye, feet, or groin-pits; a large gland or præputial bag under the stomach in the males, which contains the secretion known in commerce as "musk." ”

“ What sort of a muzhik?"
"Why a plain ordinary muzhik. A muzhik like all other muzhiks. He would get the breakfast rolls for us right away, and he could also catch partridges and fish for us."
"Hm, a muzhik. But where are we to fetch one from, if there is no muzhik here?"
"Why shouldn't there be a muzhik here? There are muzhiks everywhere. All one has to do is hunt for them. There certainly must be a muzhik hiding here somewhere so as to get out of working."
This thought so cheered the Officials that they instantly jumped up to go in search of a muzhik. ”

“ Musquitoes appear to be particularly fond of the fresh blood of Europeans, who always suffer much more the first year of their arrival in America than they do afterwards. The people of the country seem quite to disregard their attacks. Wherever they fix their sting, a little tumor or pustule usually arises, supposed to be occasioned by the fermentation, when mixed with the blood, of a small quantity 287of liquor which the insect always injects into the wound it makes with its spicula, as may be seen through a microscope, and which it probably does to render the blood more fluid. ”

“ These are the genuine musk pouches, of which very few are exported, because they falsify them, and they do it in this way. It must be known that on taking it from the living animal, they place many leeches on the wounds, and allow them to gorge themselves with blood, and when full they put them in the sun to dry, and of these they put so many that the animal falls dead without any blood, and afterwards they skin it, and with the skin they make several counterfeit pouches, which look like the real ones. ”

“ The genus Philæmatomyia, Austen, is intermediate between Stomoxys and Musca in structure, and between the non-blood-sucking Musca, as M. domestica, and the blood-sucking Musca pattoni, Austen, which feeds on the blood exuding from the bites of true blood-suckers. They occur in Central Africa and India, Ceylon and Cyprus (vide “The Life-history of Philæmatomyia insignis, Austen,” Ann. Trop. Med. and Par., 1912, v, p. 515) . ”

“ The Muskrat produces the fur most worn by the masses, and is largely exported into Germany, France and England. It is estimated that over six millions of muskrat skins are annually taken in America, and of that number one-half are used in Germany alone. ”

“ The mode in which musk is collected for sale is to kill the animals, cut off the bags, and tie them closely up to prevent it from being spoiled by evaporation. In those countries where the animals are most abundant they are pursued in the autumn and winter, and generally with so much success that many thousands of bags are annually collected. It is, however, presumed that, of those which are sold, many are factitious, formed of other parts of the skin, and filled with musk adulterated by mixture with other substances. ”

“ Infantile diarrhoea, which so afflicts the crowded, poorer quarters of our cities in the summer, is another disease intimately associated with Musca domestica. But that is hardly a disease likely to trouble the soldiers. The tubercle bacillus is another germ conveyed by flies. House-flies are particularly fond of feeding on saliva; and Hayward, Lord, and Graham-Smith have obtained virulent bacilli from the intestines and dejecta of flies which had been fed on tubes containing tuberculous sputum. ”

“ The Musquashes is a small Beast that lives in shallow ponds, where they build them houses of earth and sticks in shape like mole-hills, and feed upon Calamus Aromaticus: in May they scent very strong of Muske; their furr is of no great esteem; their stones wrapt up in Cotten-wool will continue a long time, and are good to lay amongst cloths to give them a grateful smell. ”

“ Animals which are known to prey on the Mussels are Muskrats, Minks, Raccoons, and Hogs, the first and last being especially destructive. The freshets to which the Mississippi is periodically subject undoubtedly do great damage to the Mussel-beds, burying them under sand and mud. Shifting sand-bars are also known to cover up beds. The fishermen sometimes find extensive beds of dead shells which appear to have been recently uncovered by the current. During freshets, when the stream finds new channels, many Mussels are carried from their beds, and left dry when the water subsides. ”

“ Though fairly omnivorous in his tastes, the big muskrat, like all his tribe, was so content with his lilies, flag-root, and clams, that he was not generally regarded as a foe by the birds and other small people of the wilderness. He was too well fed to be a keen hunter.
Having learned (and taught his fellows) to avoid muskrat-traps, the big muskrat enjoyed his lazy summer life on Bitter Creek with a care-free spirit that is permitted to few, indeed, of the furtive kindred of the wild. There was no mink, as we have seen, to beware of ”

“ The inhabitants are sometimes greatly troubled with Musquitoes. They either follow the hay which is made near the town, in the low meadows which are quite penetrated with salt water; or they accompany the cattle at night when it is brought home. I have myself experienced, and have observed in others, how much these little animalcules can disfigure a person’s face during a single night; for the skin is sometimes [268] so covered over with little blisters from their stings, that people are ashamed to appear in public. ”

“ Sometimes muskrats are driven from their dens by pounding the bank with some heavy object directly over the entrance; when the animals are aware of the thumping, they usually flee from imaginary harm's way by taking to the water; they are then shot as they emerge. The above methods of taking muskrats through ice are good, but can only be used on clear ice, not over five inches in thickness, as the shot will not take effect in heavier ice. ”