When our river overflows its banks in the spring, the wind from the
meadows is laden with a strong scent of musk, and by its freshness
advertises me of an unexplored wildness. Those backwoods are not far off
then. I am affected by the sight of the cabins of the musk-rat, made of
mud and grass, and raised three or four feet along the river, as when I
read of the barrows of Asia. The musk-rat is the beaver of the settled
States. Their number has even increased within a few years in this
vicinity. Among the rivers which empty into the Merrimack, the Concord is
known to the boatmen as a dead stream. The Indians are said to have called
it Musketaquid, or Prairie River. Its current being much more sluggish,
and its water more muddy than the rest, it abounds more in fish and game
of every kind. According to the History of the town, "The fur-trade was
here once very important. As early as 1641, a company was formed in the
colony, of which Major Willard of Concord was superintendent, and had the
exclusive right to trade with the Indians in furs and other articles; and
for this right they were obliged to pay into the public treasury one
twentieth of all the furs they obtained." There are trappers in our midst
still, as well as on the streams of the far West, who night and morning go
the round of their traps, without fear of the Indian. One of these takes
from one hundred and fifty to two hundred musk-rats in a year, and even
thirty-six have been shot by one man in a day. Their fur, which is not
nearly as valuable as formerly, is in good condition in the winter and
spring only; and upon the breaking up of the ice, when they are driven out
of their holes by the water, the greatest number is shot from boats,
either swimming or resting on their stools, or slight supports of grass
and reeds, by the side of the stream. Though they exhibit considerable
cunning at other times, they are easily taken in a trap, which has only to
be placed in their holes, or wherever they frequent, without any bait
being used, though it is sometimes rubbed with their musk. In the winter