We have excellent descriptions and classifications of mushrooms and toadstools, but of the actual life of these organisms, of the conditions of their growth, little is known. Some of the most hideous are delicious to our palate, some of the most beautiful are certain death. The splendid red and yellow amanita, which lights up a dark spot in the woods like some flowering orchid, is a veritable trap of death. Though human beings have learned the fatal lesson and leave it alone, the poor flies in the woods are ever deceived by its brightness, or odour, and a circle of their bodies upon the ground shows the result of their ignorance. MUSKRATS Long before man began to inherit the earth, giant beavers built their dams and swam in the streams of long ago. For ages these creatures have been extinct. Our forefathers, during historical times, found smaller beavers abundant, and with such zeal did they trap them that this modern race is now well-nigh vanished. Nothing is left to us but the humble muskrat,--which in name and in facile adaptation to the encroachments of civilization has little in common with his more noble predecessor. Yet in many ways his habits of life bring to mind the beaver. Let us make the most of our heritage and watch at the edge of a stream some evening in late fall. If the muskrats have half finished their mound of sticks and mud, which is to serve them for a winter home, we will be sure to see some of them at work. Two lines of ripples furrow the surface outward from the farther bank, and a small dark form clambers upon the pile of rubbish. Suddenly a _spat!_ sounds at our very feet, and a muskrat dives headlong into the water, followed by the one on the ground. Another _spat!_ and splash comes from farther down the stream, and so the danger signal of the muskrat clan is passed along,--a single flap upon the water with the flat of the tail. * * * * * If we wait silent and patient, the work will be taken up anew, and in the pale moonlight the little labourers will fashion their house, lining the upper chamber with soft grasses, and shaping the steep passageway which will lead to the ever-unfrozen stream-bed. Either here or in the snug tunnel nest deep in the bank the young muskrats are born, and here they are weaned upon toothsome mussels and succulent lily roots.