DeSoto times. (Hernando, Miss.) 1879-1898, 1890-09-18
HUNTING MUSkRATS.
An Important Industry of the FishlRi
Bay (Md.) District.

An Important Industry of the Flshlng
Bay (Md.) District.
visit to Illustrating village, as
the scattering cabins of tho trappers
along tho border of Fishing bay, Mary
land, are called, will be revelation to
the stranger. The cabins are rude, and
have barely habitable appearance.
Tho occupants are squatters, and the
materials of which their cabins are
built have been appropriated from tho
nearest tract of timber land. Tho trap
pers and their families are a wild and
tattered race Of beings, but hardy and
good natured. One popularity of n
muskratting village is the large num-
Der of children that belong to each
cabin. Another feature OF the COM
munity Is species of razor-back hog
that swells the population with its pres
ence. This nondescript member of the
porcine family has an important mis-
sion to perform in these settlements,
and he performs it with will. 1t is
the making away with the hundreds of
surplus muskrat carcasses that accumu-
late, although the flesh of the muskrat
forms an important article of food with
the trapper and his family. As for that,
however, caters Of muskratmeat are not
confined to the trapping villages of
Fishing bay, for it is considered a
great delicacy by many an epicure in
that land of terrapin and canvas backs
A remarkable thing about the razor
back hogs of the muskrat region is that,
although they devour untold pounds of
muskrat meat every day, they never
show the richness of their keeping by
adding single pound Of flesh to their
cadaverous bodies.
The muskrat builds its house so that,
while it has couple of stories high and
dry on the ground the entrance to it IS
always under water. This entrance Is
a long tunnel running from point a
foot or more beneath the water at low
tide line to the ground floor of the
house, which is always flooded. Tho
muskrats reason for having this sub
terranean entrance TO his dwelling
place is that thereby he has an exit or
an entrance in time of danger that will
not betray him to his enemies, either
in his flight from home, or in seeking
refuge within its walls. But his in
stinct does not warn him against the
trap his most cunning and persistent
enemy places at this hidden entrance
to his home, changing it from way to
safety into an avenue to certain death.
This trap Is wooden box, three feet
long and six inches in width and
depth In each end is a wire-door, hung
on hinges at tho top. These doors
rise at the slightest push on the out
side, but will not open from the inside.
The trap is sunk in the water to the
mouth of the muskrats tunnel and
anchored there, and whether the musk,
ratio is going out of his house or return
ing to it, he is sure to walk into the
trap. If he had time, the captive rodent
could gnaw his way out of the box, but
before he can flee himself he will
drown. A whole family of muskrats
may be taken in a single night in one
of these traps, and every trapper has
out as many traps as he can attend t..
There are other ways by which the
musErat is pursued. In the daytime the
hunters steal over the marshes and jab
long-handled spears with sharp barbed
tines down through the roofs of the
muskrat houses. Sometimes spear
will impale half a dozen rats as they
lie cuddled toge ther in their cosy nests.
Hunters with guns skirt the marshes at
night looking for muslIrats with the aid
of Jack lamps, but that method of hunt
ing is followed more to indulge the
sporting inclination of the hunter than
to reap profit Times OF extraordinary
tides on the marshes are times always
welcomed by the muskratter, for the
rats are then forced from their houses,
in spite of the intallible instinct they
are alleged to possess in foreseeing such
calamitous happenings and guarding
against them by building their houses
higher. They are compelled to fec to
the open country and seek places Of
safety, which they rarely find, for the
trappcrs and hunters have no difficulty
in locating them, and SO they are given
over to wholesale slaughter. -Clothier
and Furnisher.