He at once, either with his axe or the blade of his sharp maple paddle, chops down the mud bank until he has an embankment or dam. This is to prevent the musquash from running out to deep water. When all is ready, either his wife or the boy who is steering the canoe is sent ashore to prod about the honey-combed bank with the handle of his paddle. The little animals thus disturbed and thoroughly frightened make a rush for the outlet, deep water and safety, but (there is always a "but") the Indian, with his upraised paddle, has his eye steadily fixed on the water back of his dam, and as fast as one makes its appearance the sharp edge of the paddle is brought down on its head or back, and it is thrown into the canoe, quivering in its death agony. From two to eight or nine are not infrequently taken from one hole. When the last one is killed, the Indian moves his canoe on until he finds another colony, and the same process is gone over again, and he returns to his camp with his canoe filled with musquash. I have in the fall received from one Indian as many as 2,000 skins, large and small. Musquash breed twice in the summer, and bring forth at each litter from six to eight. In the fall the large ones fetch the hunters ten cents, and the kits, or small ones, five cents. The spearing of the musquash is done in this wise: The rats throw up little mud-cone lodges, or houses, out from the shore, in about a foot of water. They are not unlike beaver lodges. The inside is hollow and the entrance is under water. In this resort the rats sit, huddled together, during most of the severe winter weather. The hunter, therefore, as soon as the ice will bear his weight, slides up to the rat houses, armed with a sharp, barbed, steel spear, about a foot long, let into the end of a small tamarac handle. This handle is generally about 8 feet long. Arriving close to the lodge, he poises the spear in mid-air for a moment and drives it down through the lodge with all his might. If he pierced a rat, he feels it wriggling on the spear, and keeps it fast there until he has torn away the mud and grass. He then seizes it by the tail and draws it with a jerk from the spear and knocks it on the ice, which finishes Mr. Rat. At times, when there are a number of musquash in the same lodge at the same time, the spear often passes through two, or even three, at one stroke. This is great sport where the lodges are numerous. Musquash killed under the ice are worth two or three cents each more than in the fall, and the hunter makes frequently two to four dollars a day while it lasts. The flesh of musquash killed under the ice is highly esteemed by the Indians. It has then its winter fat on, and is free from the objectionable odor which prevails in the spring.