Muskrat Menace

A valuable little beast to the U. S. is the muskrat, which yields $25,000,000 worth of pelts per year. But in Great Britain the muskrat is a trial & tribulation. Last month Parliament passed a law condemning to death every British muskrat-at-large. Last week with trap, gun, gas and spade England's Minister of Agriculture Sir John Gilmour and Sir Archibald Sinclair, Secretary of State for Scotland, set forth to destroy all the muskrats in the United Kingdom.

In Great Britain a musquash pelt is worth only about a shilling. Britons can get their furs more cheaply from the Continent. The British muskrat-fur industry, started after the War to employ ex-servicemen, has so languished that the animals have been turned loose upon the countryside. Though vegetarians, muskrats have been accused in Britain of devouring poultry and swine, of damming small streams and destroying the banks of the larger ones, of obstructing drainage and causing floods.

Few animals are as prolific as the musquash. They breed three or four times a year; spring litters are frequently propagating by autumn. Before Great Britain was the sad example of the late Austro-Hungarian Empire. In 1905 five muskrats were taken from the U. S. to Prague. By 1914 their descendants had spread 90 mi. in every direction. In 1927 they covered half of Austria, had invaded Germany, were estimated to number 100 millions.

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