Rambles of a Naturalist

Excerpt:
In this vicinity the muskrat does not build himself a house for the winter, as our fields and dykes are too often visited. But in other parts of the country, where extensive marshes exist, and muskrats are abundant, they build very snug and substantial houses, quite as serviceable and ingenious as those of the beaver. They do not dam the water as the beaver, nor cut branches of trees to serve for the walls of their dwellings. They make it of mud and rushes, raising a cone two or thr...