The Idaho Republican. [volume] (Blackfoot, Idaho) 1904-1932, 1911-02-17

The SnOWShOe rabbit OF the Northern
woods are generally amazingly num-
ferrous for several years, then a plague
carries them off by thousands, SC
that for year or two one may fol.
low the forest trails without seeing
la rabbit. During these years the
lynxes also grow suddenly scarce. The
explanation is that the lynxes die OF
starvation when the rabbits die OF
the plague. This is natures way of
winnowing out all but the very
strongest of limbs and the most keen
of senses and intelligence.
Not a few wild creatures have
learned the wisdom of laying in
stores for rainy day, or rather for
snowy and stormy days. The mink
collects in some burrow or hollow as
much as bushel of frozen game,
consisting of ducks and birds, musk
rats, mice and rabbits. Squirrels lay
by stores of nuts and acorns and
evergreen tWigs with buds on them.
On one winter scouting trip found
a mass of linden twigs stored away
in hollow tree. 1t was evident that
no human hand had placed them
there, and the teeth marks on them
showed plainly had found the emer-
gency cache of red or gray squirrel.
True Conservationists
The wild mice store up many kinds
of seeds. Once while accidently dig
ging into deserted mouse furrow |
found a hatful of small stony nut
lets, which had been chacked by
some little mouse years ago. 1t took
me several days to identify the seeds,
when suddenly as passed through
my mind seed after seed that | knew,
it flashed upon me that they were
the stony seeds of the bladdernut,
shrub which grows profusely in the
piece of woodland where | had been
scouting around during the day.
The distribution of the seeds of
the bladdernut bush has been a riddle
to me for may years, and it is a bit
Of wood lore. that might we'll puzzle
any naturalist or woodland scout.
The little wild mice are better con-
servationists, better foresters, than
we humans. When they gather their
crops they always leave plenty of
seeds from which young bushes will
grow as the old ones die.
Two animals, the muskrat and the
beaver, have chosen a kind of winter
quarters which certainly no human
adviser would have recommended to
them. Every wide-awake Northwest
ern boy knows something about
muskrat houses. They are built of
rushes, roots and mud. The family
living room is always damp and is
located only few inches above the
water level, while the two or three
entrances to the house lie below the
water level. The harder it freezes,
the more it SHOWS, the warmer and
safer is the muskrat's house. Lakes
and rivers become icebound, but the
muskrats live happy and content I'M
less some cruel trapper cuts into their
dome or drives his lon-tined spear
through its roof.
Hunt for Food Under Ice
They are not asleep, but under the |
ice they swim and dive for their food |
of roots and bulbs. They have small |
eating and breathing houses scattered
over the marsh. They also have holes
in the banks and they know all places
of open water in the neighborhood
Occasionally, however, l think a
gets lost and suffocated I'M
der the ice. In the winter of 1908
found dead muskrat under the
ice in Lake Minnetonka. AS near as
could determine he was subjected
in trying to swim from one isiAn1 to
another. A boy friend of mine, who
Is first-class nature scout, claims
hat a muskrat swimming under the
ice often exhales a large bubble of
air and after waiting few seconds
or the refreshing of the air, again
nhales the same air and pursues it's
way. have not personally observed
his point, and it would be good
question for boys to investigate.
Muskrats do not generally lay up
arge stores, but | have found quart
n two of sedge bulbs in their houses.
Compared with the humble cabin
If the muskrat, the beavers winter
lome. is a ducal manor. His house
would occupy the, floor space of an
ordinary human living room twelve
~ fifteen feet in area. The one
arge room for the beaver family
MEASURE about five feet long, three
Get wide and two feet high. The u