A musk-rat.
1624. Martins, Fitches, Musquassus, and diuers other sorts of Vermin.—Captain Smith, ‘Virginia,’ p. 27. (N.E.D.)
1634. Rackoones, Otters, Beavers, Musquashes.—W. Wood, ‘New England’s Prospect,’ p. 88. (Stanford Dict.)
1672. There is a little Beast called a Muskquash, that liveth in small Houses in the Ponds, like Mole Hills, that feed upon there Plants.—John Josselyn, ‘New-Englands Rarities,’ p. 53. (Italics in the original.)
1674. The Musquashes is a small Beast that lives in shallow ponds, where they build them houses of earth and sticks in shape like mole-hills.—The same, ‘Voyages to New-England,’ p. 86. (N.E.D.) (Italics in the original.)
1768. “920 Musquash, 59 Wood Chucks, &c.” were slain in the year 1682 as part of an Indian funeral ceremony.—Boston News-Letter, June 30: from the Halifax Gazette.
1788. The musquash or castor muschatus, which I have dissected, has no sacs [like those of the American skunk].—Dr. S. L. Mitchill in the American Museum, v. 488/1 (May) (1789).
1792. The musquash (castor zibethicus) builds a cabin of sticks and mud in a shallow pond.—Jeremy Belknap, ‘New Hampshire,’ iii. 161.
1834. I took most comfort in catching musquash of anything I used to do.—Seba Smith (‘Major Downing’), ‘My Thirty Years Out of the Senate,’ p. 27 (1860).
