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[[bold]] How Muskrats Swim Under the Ice. [[/bold]]
     
     Muskrats have a curious method of travelling long distances under the ice. In their Winter excursions to their feeding grounds, which are frequently at great distances from their abodes, they take in breath at starting and remain under the water as long as they can. They then rise up to the ice, and breathe out the air in their lungs, which remains in bubbles against the lower surface of the ice. They wait till this air recovers oxygen from the water and ice and then take it in again, and go on till the operations has to be repeated. In this way they can travel almost any distance, and live any length of time under the ice. The hunter sometimes takes advantage of this habit of the muskrat in the following manner :-- When the marshes and the ponds, where the muskrats abound are first frozen over, and the ice is thin and clear, on striking into their houses with his hatchet, for the purpose of setting his traps, he frequently sees a whole family plunge into the water and swim away under the ice. Following one of them for some distance, he sees hum come up to renew his breath in the manner above described. After the animal has breathed against the ice, and before he has time to take his bubble in again, the hunter strikes with his hatchet directly over him, and drives him away from his breath. In this case he drowns in swimming a few rods, and the hunter, cutting a hole in the ice, takes him out. Mink, otter, and beaver travel under the ice in the same way, and hunters have frequently told me of taking otter in the manner I have described when these animals visit the houses of the muskrat for prey. --TRAPPER'S GUIDE.