No More Learning

When our river overflows its banks in the spring, the wind from the
meadows is laden with a strong scent of musk, and by its freshness
advertises me of an unexplored wildness. Those backwoods are not far
off then. I am affected by the sight of the cabins of the muskrat,
made of mud and grass, and raised three or four feet along the river,
as when I read of the barrows of Asia. The muskrat is the beaver of
the settled States. Their number has even increased within a few
years in this vicinity. Among the rivers which empty into the
Merrimack, the Concord is known to the boatmen as a dead stream. The
Indians are said to have called it Musketaquid, or Prairie River. Its
current being much more sluggish and its water more muddy than the
rest, it abounds more in fish and game of every kind. According to the
History of the town, "The fur-trade was here once very important. As
early as 1641, a company was formed in the colony, of which Major
Willard of Concord was superintendent, and had the exclusive right to
trade with the Indians in furs and other articles; and for this right
they were obliged to pay into the public treasury one twentieth of all
the furs they obtained. " There are trappers in our midst still, as
well as on the streams of the far West, who night and morning go the
round of their traps, without fear of the Indian. One of these takes
from one hundred and fifty to two hundred muskrats 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. Though they exhibit
considerable cunning at other times, they are easily taken in a trap,
which has only to be placed in their holes, or wherever they frequent,
without any bait being used, though it is sometimes rubbed with their
musk. In the winter the hunter cuts holes in the ice, and shoots them
when they come to the surface.
Their burrows are usually in the high
banks of the river, with the entrance under water, and rising within
to above the level of high water. Sometimes their nests, composed of
dried meadow-grass and flags, may be discovered where the bank is low
and spongy, by the yielding of the ground under the feet. They have
from three to seven or eight young in the spring.

Frequently, in the morning or evening, a long ripple is seen in the
still water, where a muskrat is crossing the stream, with only its
nose above the surface, and sometimes a green bough in its mouth to
build its house with. When it finds itself observed, it will dive and
swim five or six rods under water, and at length conceal itself in its
hole, or the weeds. It will remain under water for ten minutes at a
time, and on one occasion has been seen, when undisturbed, to form an
air-bubble under the ice, which contracted and expanded as it breathed
at leisure. When it suspects danger on shore, it will stand erect like
a squirrel, and survey its neighborhood for several minutes, without
moving.

In the fall, if a meadow intervene between their burrows and the
stream, they erect cabins of mud and grass, three or four feet high,
near its edge. These are not their breeding-places, though young are
sometimes found in them in late freshets, but rather their
hunting-lodges, to which they resort in the winter with their food,
and for shelter. Their food consists chiefly of flags and fresh-water
mussels, the shells of the latter being left in large quantities
around their lodges in the spring.

The Penobscot Indian wears the entire skin of a muskrat, with the
legs and tail dangling, and the head caught under his girdle, for a
pouch, into which he puts his fishing-tackle, and essences to scent
his traps with.

The bear, wolf, lynx, wildcat, deer, beaver, and marten have
disappeared; the otter is rarely if ever seen here at present; and the
mink is less common than formerly.

Perhaps of all our untamed quadrupeds, the fox has obtained the widest
and most familiar reputation, from the time of Pilpay and AEsop to the
present day. His recent tracks still give variety to a winter's walk.
I tread in the steps of the fox that has gone before me by some hours,
or which perhaps I have started, with such a tiptoe of expectation as
if I were on the trail of the Spirit itself which resides in the wood,
and expected soon to catch it in its lair. I am curious to know what
has determined its graceful curvatures, and how surely they were
coincident with the fluctuations of some mind.