The citizen. (Frederick City, Md.) 1895-1923, 1908-08-14
Qllisotor Ders..s
Muskrat.

police jury of Plaquemine parish
passed law against the capture and
killing of alligators. That parochial
statute would have made the per-
secuted saurians of the Lower Coast
smile with happiness far behind their
ears had it been duly respected. Now
Representative Welsh, of Calcasieu
parish. has made alligator protection
a State wide matter by framing and
having favorably reported in the
present session of our General AS
sembly an act to prohibit the killing
OF alligators in any part of Louisi-
ana.
This law ought to, and probably
will, be passed before the fast ap-
preaching adjournment of the pres
ent session of our State Legislature.
The good reasons for this existing
parochial and proposed State legisla-
ton in defense of our harmless and
peace loving Louisiana alligator are
founded on desires and intents to
preserve the local balance of preda-
tory animal life. Within the years
Of this living generation of men the
alligators of Louisiana and Florida
have been almost exterminated by
hordes of hide hunters on account of
The high and steadily rising market
value of their scaly skins.
But in this swinging balance of
animal life of the Louisiana low
grounds and the swamps and marshes
the comparatively rapid recent de-
crease of our alligators has been fol-
lowed by correlative increase in the
swarming millions of muskrats that
lnhabit our marshes, infest our rice
fields and depredate to a considerable
extent our cane fields located in re-
claimed swamp lands. And, worst
of all, the enormously augmented
supply of muskrats increases the
menace from these vermin to the
safety of our Mississippi River levees
In seasons of high vernal and sum-
ner floods, such as that which is now
sweeping down our river coast from
The mouth of Red River to the Gulf
If Mexico.
This noted increase of the musk
rats following the marked decrease
Of alligators in the same habitat of
some eight or ten thousand square
miles superficial area betokens that
these rodents of the marshes must
have always formed an important
part of the saurian's bill of fare. The
writer doubts very much if alligators
are able to capture many full-grown
muskrats, as the latter although
slow and clumsy as tanked up Jack
tar ashore, are as nimble as fish in
the water. But as to the young
muskrats it is different. They are
born and reared in regular musk
rat villages in diminutive mounds of
dead reeds, flags and grass, similar
to the far stronger huts of the beav-
.rs. The muskrat villages are usu-
ally placed in the most treacherous
part of the trembling marsh" in
accessible to man, but easily access
bile to alligators.
Conjecture alone may suggest how
many fat and juicy young muskrats
might be consumed in a breeding
season by one good and healthy alli-
gator comfortably holed in the midst
Of an ayerage-sized muskrat village.
TO prove that the reflective saurians
must avail themselves of such ad-
vantages in the accessibility of a lib
eral food-supply, the alligator hunt
ers usually find the muskrat marshes
the best alligator marshes.
There is another item in this bal
ance account of animal life which
seems to have escaped our local and
State lawmakers. Minks are more de-
str6ctive to muskrats in their ma
turity than are alligators. The mink
follows the muskrat ashore, trailing
and running him down, numbering
him and sucking his blood, Just as
he hunts to the death the nimble
wood-rabbit and the feet marsh
hare. He may also pursue the
aquatic rodent in the water, being
swifter as swimmer than the little
beast he hunts and an equally good
diver. OF late years the enhance
ment of the value of mink-skins by
several hundred per cent, or from
one dollar apiece to three or four
for first-class skins, has resulted in
the trapping of many thousands Of
these animals during recent years.
Hence the multiplication table of the
muskrats has had the advantage of
the large elimination of its two prin-
cipal negative factors. The question
of mink-protection is unlikely to rise
to the dignity of political considera-
ton in Louisiana; although the well
fare of the mink and the weasel has
been for several years officially
guarded for seasons of varying dura-
tion in several of our far Northern
States. The writer presents this
point merely to show that mink-re-
duction may also partly account for
the increase of the muskrat species
in such undue proportions in all the
lowlands of South Louisiana, till now
the warcry that was raised against
the pestiferous rodent by the police
jurors of Plaquemine parish a decade
agone is waited back in trumpet
tones from the far wilds of Calcasieu
on the eloquent lips of State Repre-
sentative Welsh.
Although the efficient sheriff of
Plaquemine parish has occasionally
captured and confined a hermit alli-