Long before man began to inherit the earth, giant beavers built their dams
and swam in the streams of long ago. For ages these creatures have been
extinct. Our forefathers, during historical times, found smaller beavers
abundant, and with such zeal did they trap them that this modern race is
now well-nigh vanished. Nothing is left to us but the humble
muskrat,--which in name and in facile adaptation to the encroachments of
civilization has little in common with his more noble predecessor. Yet in
many ways his habits of life bring to mind the beaver.
Let us make the most of our heritage and watch at the edge of a stream
some evening in late fall. If the muskrats have half finished their mound
of sticks and mud, which is to serve them for a winter home, we will be
sure to see some of them at work. Two lines of ripples furrow the surface
outward from the farther bank, and a small dark form clambers upon the
pile of rubbish. Suddenly a _spat!_ sounds at our very feet, and a muskrat
dives headlong into the water, followed by the one on the ground. Another
_spat!_ and splash comes from farther down the stream, and so the danger
signal of the muskrat clan is passed along,--a single flap upon the water
with the flat of the tail.
* * * * *
If we wait silent and patient, the work will be taken up anew, and in the
pale moonlight the little labourers will fashion their house, lining the
upper chamber with soft grasses, and shaping the steep passageway which
will lead to the ever-unfrozen stream-bed. Either here or in the snug
tunnel nest deep in the bank the young muskrats are born, and here they
are weaned upon toothsome mussels and succulent lily roots.
Safe from all save mink and owl and trap, these sturdy muskrats spend the
summer in and about the streams; and when winter shuts down hard and fast,
they live lives more interesting than any of our other animals. The ground
freezes their tunnels into tubes of iron,--the ice seals the surface, past
all gnawing out; and yet, amid the quietly flowing water, where snow and
wind never penetrate, these warm-blooded, air-breathing muskrats live the
winter through, with only the trout and eels for company. Their food is
the bark and pith of certain plants; their air is what leaks through the
house of sticks, or what may collect at the melting-place of ice and
shore.
Stretched full length on the smooth ice, let us look through into that
strange nether world, where the stress of storm is unknown. Far beneath us
sinuous black forms undulate through the water,--from tunnel to house and
back again. As we gaze down through the crystalline mass, occasional
fractures play pranks with the objects below. The animate shapes seem to
take unto themselves greater bulk; their tails broaden, their bodies
become many times longer. For a moment the illusion is perfect; thousands
of centuries have slipped back, and we are looking at the giant beavers of
old.
Let us give thanks that even the humble muskrat still holds his own. A
century or two hence and posterity may look with wonder at his stuffed
skin in a museum!