"Muskrat" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... while we were pulling over a lot of old truck in a corner of the shop, we found some rusty muskrat traps. Edmund asked William if he used them. "No; I did considerable trapping when I was a boy. You and Ben may have them if you want them. Your father and I, Benny, trapped together one winter; and we used to go hunting wild turkeys too. There were a number of them over at Mt. Gilboa ...
— Ben Comee - A Tale of Rogers's Rangers, 1758-59 • M. J. (Michael Joseph) Canavan
... head under water as he had seen his cousin, Mr. Otter, swim. The more he did this, the longer he could hold his breath. After a while he found that because he was slim and trim and moved so fast, he could out-swim Mr. Muskrat, and this made him feel very good indeed, for Mr. Muskrat spent nearly all his time in the water and was accounted a very good swimmer. There was only one thing that bothered Mr. Mink. The water was so dreadfully wet! Every time he came out of it, he had to run his hardest to dry ...
— Mother West Wind "How" Stories • Thornton W. Burgess
... big muskrat. They won't hurt you. There are many of them in the lake, and in the winter the men catch them for their skins to make fur-lined coats from. It was only a big muskrat you ...
— Six Little Bunkers at Grandma Bell's • Laura Lee Hope
... third larger than those killed in any other region. Black bears and brown bears are most frequently to be met with between Fort Pelly and Portage La Loche. Cumberland House is the centre of the greatest breeding grounds for muskrat, mink, and ermine. Manitoba House is another great district for muskrat. Lynxes are found in greatest numbers in the Iroquois Valley, in the foothills on the eastern side of the Rockies. Coyote skins come chiefly from the district ...
— The Drama of the Forests - Romance and Adventure • Arthur Heming
... tribes belonging to thirty different linguistic stocks. Throughout this wide distribution the "dice" are not only of different forms but are made from a variety of materials: split-cane; wooden or bone staves or blocks; pottery; beaver or muskrat teeth; walnut shells; persimmon, peach or plum stones. All the "dice" of whatever kind have the two sides different in color, in marking, or in both. Those of the smaller type are tossed in a basket or bowl. Those that are like long sticks, similar to arrow shafts, from which they ...
— Indian Games and Dances with Native Songs • Alice C. Fletcher
... escaped his watchful eye. From the crest of the Cumberland to the yellow flood of the Ohio he knew that land, and he loved every acre of it, whether blue-grass, bear-grass, peavine, or pennyroyal, and he knew its history from Daniel Boone to the little Boones who still trapped skunk, mink, and muskrat, and shot squirrels in the hills with the same old-fashioned rifle, and he loved its people—his people—whether they wore silk and slippers, homespun and brogans, patent leathers and broadcloth, or cowhide boots and jeans. ...
— The Heart Of The Hills • John Fox, Jr.
... buffalo-bull. From him proceed invisible influences. The Great Unkthee created the earth. "Assembling in grand conclave all the aquatic tribes he ordered them to bring up dirt from beneath the waters, and proclaimed death to the disobedient. The beaver and otter forfeited their lives. At last the muskrat went beneath the waters, and, after a long time appeared at the surface, nearly exhausted, with some dirt. From this, Unkthee fashioned the earth into a large circular plain. The earth being finished, he took a deity, one of ...
— Legends of the Northwest • Hanford Lennox Gordon
... been disturbed, is usually three. These are laid in a saucer shaped structure of dead vegetation, which is scraped together, from the surface of the wet, boggy ground. The bird figured in the plate had placed its nest on the edge of an old muskrat house, and my attention was attracted to it by the fact that upon the edge of the rat house, where it had climbed to rest itself, was the body of a young dabchick, or piedbilled grebe, scarcely two ...
— Birds Illustrated by Color Photograph [March 1897] - A Monthly Serial designed to Promote Knowledge of Bird-Life • Various
... to be smoked or dried for future use was eagerly sought. Their success was phenomenal. Deer, bear, turkeys, and geese fell before their rifles, while their traps, in the construction of which Atoka was a past-master, yielded beaver, otter, muskrat, and raccoons. ...
— At War with Pontiac - The Totem of the Bear • Kirk Munroe and J. Finnemore
... just a suggestion of musk. All the other scents and sounds have been of a soothing quality, especially in combination with each other. In this suggestion of musk is something which bids one sit up and watch out. By and by I see the beast, a muskrat, steamboating his way up the rapids like a furry Maid-of-the-Mist, or perhaps I should say a submarine, that navigates the surface with but little bulk exposed. Presently he proves himself a submarine ...
— Old Plymouth Trails • Winthrop Packard
... exclaimed Uncle Wiggily Longears, the rabbit gentleman, one day, as he hopped up the steps of his hollow stump bungalow where Nurse Jane Fuzzy Wuzzy, his muskrat lady housekeeper, was fanning herself with a cabbage leaf tied to her tail. ...
— Uncle Wiggily in the Woods • Howard R. Garis
... The muskrat trapper did not prove to be in a very pleasant frame of mind, but, after Mark had given him a quarter, Bascomb consented to answer a few questions. The boys told him about looking for a strange man, describing him as best they could, though they did ...
— Lost on the Moon - or In Quest Of The Field of Diamonds • Roy Rockwood
... the sleeper had designated "Redmond," proceeded to divest himself of his short fur coat and, after dashing the snow from it and his muskrat-faced cap, unbuckled his side-arms, and hung all up at the head of his ...
— The Luck of the Mounted - A Tale of the Royal Northwest Mounted Police • Ralph S. Kendall
... the hunters shot at an otter last evening; a buffalo was killed, and an elk, both so poor as to be almost unfit for use; two white (grizzly) bears were also seen, and a muskrat swimming across the river. The river continues wide and of about the same rapidity as the ordinary current of the Ohio. The low grounds are wide, the moister parts containing timber; the upland is extremely broken, without ...
— First Across the Continent • Noah Brooks
... served for a bed. It is thus that a couple of men, in a few hours will construct for themselves a temporary, but tolerably comfortable defense, from the inclemencies of the weather. The beaver, otter, muskrat and squirrel are scarcely their equals in dispatch in fabricating for themselves a ...
— Life & Times of Col. Daniel Boone • Cecil B. Harley
... potatoes home to his own yard and buries them, for winter use. They dig a hole about four or five feet in diameter and one foot deep, in which they pack the potatoes and pile them up above ground in a conical heap about four feet high. So when done they look like a sort of overgrown muskrat's nest, or small wigwam.[71] Large families have in some cases seven or eight of these conical ...
— Letters from Port Royal - Written at the Time of the Civil War (1862-1868) • Various
... hung over the tawny sedges of the swamp. "Jack-o'-Lantern" was the only inhabitant who burned gas hereabouts in those times, and he manufactured his own. The nocturnal raccoon edged his way through the alders here, in the old summer nights, and the muskrat built his house among the reeds. Not a raccoon nor a muskrat is the wayfarer likely to meet with here to-night; but the gray rat of civilization is to be dimly discerned, as he lopes along the ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 20, No. 121, November, 1867 • Various
... traitor; fleer! though thou 'scape Our ambush on thy devil's racer, Caught here upon this marshy cape, Thy bones the muskrat's brood shall scrape, The sturgeon suck—Death thy embracer!" So shouts ...
— Tales of the Chesapeake • George Alfred Townsend
... "No, th' portage at Muskrat Falls is th' first," answered Bob, adding uncertainly: "I'm 'feared you'll find th' work on th' river wearisome, not bein' used t' un—th' portagin' an' trackin'. ...
— The Gaunt Gray Wolf - A Tale of Adventure With Ungava Bob • Dillon Wallace
... subject to another important limitation. The judicial power is limited by the Constitution to actual cases and controversies between opposing parties. The Court cannot decide moot questions or act as an adviser for other departments of the government. A striking illustration is found in the so-called Muskrat case.[1] Congress having legislated concerning the distribution of property of the Cherokee Indians, and doubts having arisen as to the constitutional validity of the legislation, Congress passed another act empowering one David Muskrat and other Cherokee citizens to file suit, naming the United ...
— Our Changing Constitution • Charles Pierson
... single mile. Where mink are thick not over sixteen should be set per mile. Where coon are thick about twenty per mile. Where beaver are thick about forty per mile and where otter are thick about ten traps per mile. The Muskrat—is the most interesting of all animals that live in water. The beaver Black, Blue, Brown, ...
— Black Beaver - The Trapper • James Campbell Lewis
... the glow of a great camp fire. Only a fossil hunter or a desert traveler can fully appreciate the luxury of abundant wood and running water. In the stillness of the night the underworld was alive and many little feet rustled the leaves where daylight disclosed no sound. Then the beaver and muskrat swam up to investigate this new intruder, while from the tree-tops came ...
— Dinosaurs - With Special Reference to the American Museum Collections • William Diller Matthew
... circumference of forty miles then he set his traps, for the beaver, the mink, the fox, the fisher, the muskrat, and the other fur-bearing animals of the north. At regular intervals he visited these traps one after the other, crunching swiftly along on his snow-shoes. Jim always accompanied him. When the snow was deep, he wallowed painfully after in the tracks made by ...
— Blazed Trail Stories - and Stories of the Wild Life • Stewart Edward White
... lakes: dark water reflecting wooded bluffs, a flight of ducks, a fisherman in shirt sleeves and a wide straw hat, holding up a string of croppies. One winter picture of the edge of Plover Lake had the air of an etching: lustrous slide of ice, snow in the crevices of a boggy bank, the mound of a muskrat house, reeds in thin black lines, arches of frosty grasses. It was an impression of cool ...
— Main Street • Sinclair Lewis
... cheek. A wild duck in the rushes below gave an alarm signal, and it ran in subdued voice, note by note, along the shore. The Harvester gripped the mattock and stood motionless. Wild things had taught him so many lessons he heeded their warnings instinctively. Perhaps it was a mink or muskrat approaching the rushes. Listening intently, he heard a stealthy step coming up ...
— The Harvester • Gene Stratton Porter
... down a broad Canadian valley filled with wheat fields and pleasant farms. Canada's wild life is represented in the foreground by splendid stuffed specimens, from the bear and the moose and the musk-ox to the marten and the muskrat, and from the great gray honker to the hummingbird. On the right, in a forest scene, is a beaver pond with dam and house, where the real beavers splash in the water. On the left of the scene, where a cascade tumbles into ...
— The Jewel City • Ben Macomber
... markets four kinds of terrapin are sold—not counting muskrat, which is sometimes disguised with sauce and sherry and served as a substitute. The cheapest and toughest terrapin is known as the "slider." Slightly superior to the "slider" is the "fat-back," measuring, usually, about nine or ten inches in length, and costing, ...
— American Adventures - A Second Trip 'Abroad at home' • Julian Street
... us that once this earth was entirely submerged in water, and during this period for many days a busy little muskrat swam about vainly looking for a foothold of earth wherein to build his house. In his search he encountered a turtle also leisurely swimming, so they had speech together, and the muskrat complained of weariness; he could find no foothold; he was tired of incessant swimming, and longed for land ...
— Legends of Vancouver • E. Pauline Johnson
... of the feast hanging up at the top of the kitchenward door—a pair of roughly-forged, rusty handcuffs amalgamated into one pair of jaws, like a muskrat trap. What was the use of that thing, conductor? "That sir, they put the 'ands in of them as shirked and didn't drink up all the wine as was poured into their cups, and there they made them stand on tiptoe up ...
— Seeing Europe with Famous Authors, Volume I. - Great Britain and Ireland • Various
... brown animal hunched up on the bank eating a clam. It dived into the water at his approach, but it reappeared swimming farther on. Then, when it dived again, Yan saw by its long thin tail that it was a Muskrat, like the stuffed one he had ...
— Two Little Savages • Ernest Thompson Seton
... not so much kindness of heart as respect for his own dignity which made Viggo refrain from calling Marcus a "Muskrat" or a "Smelling-Bottle." And yet Marcus regarded this gracious forbearance on his part as the mark of a noble soul. He had been compelled to accept these offensive nicknames, and, finding rebellion vain, he had ...
— Boyhood in Norway • Hjalmar Hjorth Boyesen
... out of Marie-Anne's forehead, and a half-smile trembled on her red lips. "Yes, there is betting. But those who are for you are offering next autumn's muskrat skins and frozen fish against lynx and fisher and marten. The odds are about thirty to one ...
— The Flaming Forest • James Oliver Curwood
... from hearing a boy talking when I was down in the market yesterday morning. You know who he is, Johnny Spreen, the fellow who always ships out a raft of dried ginseng roots every year, and in the Spring sends a bunch of muskrat skins to ...
— Afloat - or, Adventures on Watery Trails • Alan Douglas
... dated 1603; the instrument used in those distant days for taking astronomical observations and ascertaining the latitude. No doubt it had belonged to Champlain, who lost it on this very portage by way of Muskrat and Mud lakes, as from this place he ceases to give us the correct latitudes which he had ...
— Canada • J. G. Bourinot
... as I landed. The nest might be upon the ground or lodged among the bushes; but the only ground space large enough was covered layer over layer with pearly clam-shells, the kitchen-midden of some muskrat; and the bushes were empty. I went to the other islets, searched bog and tangle, and finally pulled away disappointed, giving the least bittern credit for considerable mother-wit and woodcraft. How little wit she really had appeared on ...
— Roof and Meadow • Dallas Lore Sharp
... shack a few days later, and was considerably surprised to find the place roughly boarded up, while sounds of talking came from a shanty at the back. The latter was on the plumed edge of an odorous hemlock wood; squirrels and chipmunks ran, chattering, hither and thither in quest of food, and a muskrat, sitting on a log near the water, looked unconcernedly at Ringfield as he stood, hesitating, for a few seconds. While he thus remained, a boy came along, looked at the "store" and scudded away; then came a little girl, and, ...
— Ringfield - A Novel • Susie Frances Harrison
... they reached the Muskrat Falls, where the torrent, with a great roar, pours down seventy feet over the solid rocks. An Indian portage trail leads around the falls and meets the river again half a mile farther up. At its beginning it ascends a steep incline two hundred ...
— Ungava Bob - A Winter's Tale • Dillon Wallace
... arm of a small lake, whose surface was profusely dotted with conical muskrat houses which reared their brown domes above the broken rice-straw and ...
— The Promise - A Tale of the Great Northwest • James B. Hendryx
... beings were present there, but the forest was filled with inhabitants, and hundreds of eyes regarded the red youth with the bow, and the white youth with the rifle, as they passed among the trees. Rabbits looked at them from small red eyes. A muskrat, at a brook's edge, gazed a moment and then dived from sight. A chipmunk cocked up his ears, listened and ...
— The Hunters of the Hills • Joseph Altsheler
... Mr. Frog. "My time is valuable, you know. I ought to be back in my shop this moment; for I promised Paddy Muskrat I'd make him a policeman's uniform by to-morrow morning. And I ...
— The Tale of Kiddie Katydid • Arthur Scott Bailey
... the Indian lovers, and how brave in bear hunting! With teeth of the cinnamon and grizzly we made chains for our necks, and with breasts of waterfowl we made aprons. In streams we tracked beaver and muskrat, besides mink for our coats ...
— The Trail of a Sourdough - Life in Alaska • May Kellogg Sullivan
... troll in Mountaineer Lake, but caught nothing. Apparently there was nothing there but trout, of which fish I caught eight at the inlet. I shot with my pistol a muskrat that was swimming in the lake, but George did not cook it, as he said the flesh would be too strong at that season. It was raining again and the mosquitoes were out in millions, but with three geese ...
— The Lure of the Labrador Wild • Dillon Wallace |
