Читать книгу New Ideas for American Boys; The Jack of All Trades - Daniel Carter Beard - Страница 39

Table of Contents

may be successfully used to capture both young and old.

However fierce an old wild “ground-hog” may be, one that is taken young and reared in captivity is remarkably gentle. It is fond of a noonday nap, but when the sun sinks in the west, and the long shadows creep across the fields, it will rouse from its slumber, sit up, wash its face like a mouse or a squirrel, and be ready for a frolic.

Fig. 19.—How the Tin is Cut.

When cold weather approaches, the woodchuck, ground-hog, marmot, or siffleur, as it is variously called, will prepare for a long winter sleep by rolling itself into a ball. In this condition you may pack it away like the jumping-mouse, and when friends call you can take the ground-hog out and even roll it around the floor without seeing any signs of life displayed by the hairy ball. But when spring returns, your Rip Van Winkle pet will awaken, and after sitting up on its haunches, and washing its face with its front paws, will be ready for a breakfast of clover or other food.

Rare old Captain John Smith, in his quaint “History of New England and the Summer Isles,” published in London in 1624, gives, probably, the first written account of the musk-rat. He says that “the mussascus is a beast of the form and nature of our (English) water-rat;” and he adds, “some of them smell exceedingly strong of musk.” These animals may be caught in almost any sort of a trap baited with sweet apples or parsnips.