Betty Lou Downs, age 12, of Bardstown, Icy., for her question:
Does the muskrat live under the water?
We may find the muskrat across our continent wherever there are soggy swamps or muddy marshes. He may dig a home in the bank of a lazy creek or build a house resting on the floor or a shallow pool. But if you wish to observe his habits and hone life you must be well-hidden and very quiet.
The muskrat is a shy character, but he was well known to the Indians. They loved to watch the ways of the wild creatures of nature, but they did not use the methods of modern science to explain what they saw. They saw the muskrat build a ragged pile of reeds and rushes on the floor of some shallow pool. Perhaps they investigated a different type of muskrat home tunneled into the bank of a stream. The front door of each house is below the water, but a passageway leads up to the floor of the house, which is high and dry above the water level. This is where the muskrat lives.
When threatened by an eagle or a hungry hawk, a mink or a snapping turtle, the muskrat dives below and scrambles up the tunnel to the safety of his cozy living room. Perhaps the Indians did not know about this trick for they were sure that no animal would choose to live in such a damp dwelling. They invented a legend to explain the facts they knew. Long ago, they claimed, a ginger colored meadow mouse helped the sun god Nanabojou through a disastrous flood.
The god rewarded the furry hero with a promise to live exactly where he wished. The muskrat chose home in a deep watery lake, but soon he returned to request a transfer to the grassy shore. This wish also was granted, but the muskrat returned to ask for his first site back again. The kindly god then lost patience. The muskrat that could not decide between a home in the water or on the land was ordered to live forever in the swamps.
If this story were true, which it is not, the order would have suited the muskrat just fine. He loved to swim in the nearby water, and his home with its underwater Entrance protects him from his foes. Through most of the year he dines on the rushes that anchor their roots in the marsh mud. His ancestors built their house in the swamps because it suited them, and our muskrat has no reason to change the family custom.
When winter comes the ground is frozen hard and tender shoots are scarce. The muskrats retire to their cozy home high and dry above the icy water and nibble on the supply of reeds stored along their walls. In April a litter of babies is born in the muskrat house. In a month the youngsters leave home and three more litters may be born before fall.
Mr. Muskrat is a chubby vole or field mouse. His furry body measures 15 inches plus 10 inches of ratty tail. He wears a stiff white moustache on his pointed nose, and most of his thick water repellent coat is orange brown. He is our most common fur bearing animal, and every year some 12 million of his muskrat cousins are trapped and sent to market. Their furry coats may be sold as water mink or river sable, as loutrine or under some other fancy name.