Democratic Sentinel, Volume 17, Number 11, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 31 March 1893 — AN ODORIFFEROUS SWIMMER. [ARTICLE]

AN ODORIFFEROUS SWIMMER.

The Muskrat and the Wiles of Boys to Entrap Him for His Skin. That interesting rodent, the muskrat, is plentiful all along the Atlantic coast in spite of tho fact that his skin has a commercial value everywhere and his flesh is marketed in some regions south of Mason and Dixon’s line. His enemies in Delaware and Maryland call him the mus’rat, without sounding the “k,” and he is variously called elsewhere musquash, muskbearer, and ondatra. Muskrats are shot, trapped, and speared by thousands all over the peninsula of Delaware and Maryland, and sold in the street market of Wilmington as “marsh rabbits.” The colored people are the chief consumers of the muskrat in cities, but in the country the flesh is eaten by all sorts of people. It is sweet, tender, and, according to local belief, entirely clean and wholesome. Students of the muskrat affirm that he carefully washes all his food in a running stream, if possible, and that his habits generally are cleanly. Nearly all country stores in Delaware and Maryland deal in muskrat skins, and in some cases the larger storekeepers send many thousands of them to Europe every year. The approved method of drying the skin is to turn it fur side in, over a pointed shingle, and the dried skins look like counterless slippers. Many a country boy depends upon muskrat skins for pocket money, though the storekeepers prefer bartering for them to paying in cash. The muskrat trade was so valuable in times past that the marshes upon which they have their burrows rented for the privilege of muskrat shooting. The sport is best at night, when the rats are out in search of food. When there is an extraordinary flood tide in Delaware Bay and its tributaries, however, thousands of rats are driven from their burrows, whether it be by day or by night, and the slaughter is immense. Now and then one sees a black object with a snake-like appendage moving rapidly beneath the ice of a frozen pond, and the knowing boy recognizes the creature as a muskrat. A sudden, sharp, and well-directed blow upon the ice over the muskrat’s head may stun him, and if followed closely, he may be traced to his burrow, or to the open water by which he reaches the land. The muskrat cannot long remain under water, and it is generally believed that he does not permit the whole surface of any pond to freeze over when he has his home on its bank. The muskrat is an excellent swimmer, and only a very expert or a very lucky sportsman is able to kill him in the water. liis hind feet are so placed that he is able to feather the oars in swimming, and this materially quickens his pace. When ashore and suddenly alarmed he recklessly flops into the water, making a great noise and disappearing beneath the surface to come up fifteen or twenty yards away, or perhaps to enter his cell by wav of a door opening under water. This device he employs not because he E refers that method of egrftss and ingress, ut merely by way of precaution. The hallway of his dwelling crooks upward, and the nest is a cosey place quite beyond the reach of any ordinary flood. Doubtless muskrats that have been driven out by unusually high water extend their burrows farther above the level of the stream if they live to set up housekeeping again.—[New York Bun.