the children. The young number from three to eight.
When they are full grown their coats are dark brown. In length
muskrats measure about eighteen inches, while in weight they run from a
pound and a half to two pounds.

Except in autumn, their range is exceedingly small, though at that
season they wander much farther away from their homes. If danger
threatens they are always ready to fight, and they prove to be
desperate fighters, too. While slow on land, they are swift in water;
and such excellent divers are they that in that way they sometimes
escape their greatest enemy--the mink; though wolves, fishers, foxes,
otters, as well as birds of prey and Indians are always glad to have a
muskrat for dinner.

But to return to our muskrat hunt: Oo-koo-hoo, stringing his bow and
adjusting an arrow, let drive at one of the little animals as it sat
upon some drift-wood. The blunt-headed shaft just skimmed its back and
sank into the mud beyond; the next arrow, however, bowled the muskrat
over; and in an hour's time The Owl had eleven in his canoe. When I
questioned him as to why he used such an ancient weapon, he explained
that a bow was much better than a gun, as it did not frighten the other
muskrats away, also it did not injure the pelt in the way shot would
do, and, moreover, it was much more economical.

Occasionally Oo-koo-hoo would imitate the call of the muskrats;
sometimes to arrest their attention, but more often to entice them
within easy range of his arrows. If he killed them outright while they
were swimming, they sank like stones; but when only wounded, they
usually swam round on the surface for a while. Once, however, a
wounded one dived, and, seizing hold of a reed, held on with its teeth
in order to escape its pursuer; Oo-koo-hoo, nevertheless, eventually
landed it in his canoe.

In setting steel traps for them the hunter placed the traps either in
the water or on the bank at a spot where they were in the habit of
going ashore, and to decoy them to that landing Oo-koo-hoo rubbed
castoreum on the branches of the surrounding bushes--just in the same
way as he did for mink or otter. Another way he had of setting traps
was to cut a hole in the side of a muskrat's house, so that he could
thrust in his arm and feel for the entrance to the tunnel, then he
would set a trap there and close up the hole.

One day when he was passing a muskrat house that he had previously
opened for that purpose and closed ag