Savannah courier. (Savannah, Tenn.) 1885-1979, 1890-09-18
HUNTING MUSkRATS.
An Important Industry of the Fishing
Bay (Md.) District.

Bay (Md.) District.
A visit to Illustrating village, as
the scattering cabins of the trappeFs
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,
The occupants are squatters, and the
materials OF which their cabins are
built have been appropriated from the
nearest tract of timber land. The trap
pers and their families are a wild and
tattered race of beings, but hardy and
good natured. One popularity of a
Illustrating village is the large num-
Der of children that belong to each
cabin. Another feature Of the com.
munity is a 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, eaters of muskrat meat 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 tho richness of their keeping by
adding single pound of flesh to their
cadaverous bodies
The muskrat builds its house so that,
while it has a couple of stories high and
| dry on the ground, the entrance to it is
always under water. This entrance is
| long tunnel running from a point a
foot or more beneath the water at low
| tide line to the ground floor of the
house, which is always flooded The
musk-rat's reason for having this sub
terranean entrance to his dwelling
place is that thereby he has an exit OF
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 t.
safety into an avenue to certain death
This trap is q wooden box, three fee
long and six inches in width ant
depth. In each end is a wire-door, hung
on hinges at the top. These doors
rise at tho slightest push on the out
side, but will not open from the inside
The trap is sunk in the water to the
mouth of tho muskrars tunnel an(
anchored there, and whether the musk
rate is going out of his house or return
ing to it, he is sure to walk into thu
trap. If he had time, the captive roden
could gnaw his way out of the box, bu
before he can free himself he viii
drown. A whole family of muskrat
may be taken in a single night in ont
of these traps, and every trapper ha
out as many traps as he can attend t.
There are other ways by which thu
muskrat is pursued. In the daytime tn,
hunters steal over the marshes and ial
long-handled spears with sharp barbed
tines down through the roofs of thu
muskrat houses. Sometimes spea
will impale half a dozen rats as they
lie cuddled together in their cosy nests
Hunters with guns skirt the marshes a
night looking for muskrats with the aid
of jack lamps, but that method of hunt
ing is followed moro to indulge the
sporting inclination of the hunter thar
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 iniallible instinct they
are alleged to possess in foreseeing sucf
calamitous happenings and guarding
against them by building their houses
higher. They are compelled to flee tt
the open country and seek places o
safety, which they rarely find, for the
trappers and hunters have no difficulty
in locating them, and so they are giver
over to wholesale slaughter -Clothiel
and Furnisher.