The
Mink (Atjackash) Has Been Often Confounded By Writers With The Fisher.
It
is a much smaller animal, inhabits the banks of rivers, and swims well;
its prey is fish.
The otter (neekeek) is larger than the English species
and produces a much more valuable fur.
The muskrat (watsuss, or musquash) is very abundant in all the small
grassy lakes. They build small conical houses with a mixture of hay and
earth, those which build early raising their houses on the mud of the
marshes, and those which build later in the season founding their
habitations upon the surface of the ice itself. The house covers a hole
in the ice which permits them to go into the water in search of the roots
on which they feed. In severe winters when the small lakes are frozen to
the bottom and these animals cannot procure their usual food they prey
upon each other. In this way great numbers are destroyed.
The beaver (ammisk) furnish the staple fur of the country. Many
surprising stories have been told of the sagacity with which this animal
suits the form of its habitation, retreats, and dam, to local
circumstances; and I compared the account of its manners given by Cuvier
in his Regne Animal with the reports of the Indians and found them to
agree exactly. They have been often seen in the act of constructing their
houses in the moonlight nights, and the observers agree that the stones,
wood, or other materials are carried in their teeth and generally leaning
against the shoulder. When they have placed it to their mind they turn
round and give it a smart blow with their flat tail. In the act of diving
they give a similar stroke to the surface of the water. They keep their
provision of wood under water in front of the house. Their favourite food
is the bark of the aspen, birch and willow; they also eat the alder, but
seldom touch any of the pine tribe unless from necessity; they are fond
of the large roots of the Nuphar lutea, and grow fat upon it but it gives
their flesh a strong rancid taste. In the season of love their call
resembles a groan, that of the male being the hoarsest, but the voice of
the young is exactly like the cry of a child. They are very playful as
the following anecdote will show: One day a gentleman, long resident in
this country, espied five young beavers sporting in the water, leaping
upon the trunk of a tree, pushing one another off and playing a thousand
interesting tricks. He approached softly under cover of the bushes and
prepared to fire on the unsuspecting creatures, but a nearer approach
discovered to him such a similitude betwixt their gestures and the
infantile caresses of his own children that he threw aside his gun. This
gentleman's feelings are to be envied but few traders in fur would have
acted so feelingly. The muskrat frequently inhabits the same lodge with
the beaver and the otter also thrusts himself in occasionally; the latter
however is not always a civil guest as he sometimes devours his host.
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