Traps for otters are set in the following way, under the ice: A place is selected in some small creek, connecting two lakes, where signs of otters are found. These signs are noticeable at the discharge of the lake, where the lake ice thins off into open water, for the ice is so thin that the otter readily breaks a hole to come out on the ice to eat the fish. The otter is a fish-eating animal, and is very expert in catching them. Their slideways are generally made on some moss-covered, rocky promontory, jutting out into a lake. Here they will climb up one side and slide down the other for hours at a time. Otters, when taken young, are readily tamed and become great pets. Another way of setting traps in winter is under the ice in some creek where otters are known to resort. The ice is cut away from the bank, outward, for about 3 feet long by 1 foot or so wide. Each side of this cut is staked with dry sticks, driven into the mud or sandy bottom. The trap is set between the stakes at the outer end, in about 4 inches of water at least; that is, the water may be deeper than that, but two cross sticks are so placed that the otter in entering must go under the sticks and thus gets caught. The picket to secure the trap chain to is out from the trap, as in open-water time. To induce him to enter, a small whitefish or trout is placed on a forked stick near the shore, and is so fixed that it appears to be alive and swimming. As soon as the trap is struck, the otter jumps backward into deep water, and for want of air is soon dead. * * * In Canada and the United States, the killing of the little animal known under the several names of water rat, musquash and muskrat is so well understood by the average frontier boy that any information I can give would be perhaps a repetition. Still there is one way that the Indian practices which is certainly not known to the whites, and is at a certain time very successful. That is spearing them on the ice; and another mode in which the Indians are very successful in the fall is digging them out, or "trenching" them, in the same way they do the beaver, only with much less labor, as it is done before the ponds and creeks freeze up. I will describe the latter way first, seeing it comes before that of spearing. The resort of musquash (always where they are in numbers) is along grassy rivers, creeks, or ponds; for they store up large quantities of the long, flat grass for winter use, as the beaver does with young birch and poplar. The Indian paddling along the shores of such places has his eyes fixed on the bottom of the water; presently he perceives the entrance to one of the rat burrows; he stops his canoe and gazes fixedly on the opening, which is always about a foot under water. At last he sees the water ebb and flow in and out of the hole. This is a sure sign that the "wash" is occupied at that very moment by one or more rats.