108 PROCEEDINGS OF THE ACADEMY OF 



rather low stage. Our guide and pilot in descending the river, Prevost, who 

 was an old trapper, hired by Mr. A. at St. Louis for the trip, soon discovered 

 signs of the beaver, and presently a newly constructed beaver-house about one 

 hundred yards above the boat. It was too late to examine the premises, and 

 after cutting wood, building a fire, and cooking our supper, we turned in for the 

 night. Very early in the morning, before breakfasting, we hastened to examine 

 what had been the object of more than one expedition on the Yellowstone, and 

 which had, heretofore, baffled our search. Prevost assured us that the noise 

 and smell of smoke, and cooking from our camp, must have driven the beaver 

 to a place of safety soon after our landing the night before, and that we could 

 only gratify our curiosity by the inspection of the building; whereas, had day- 

 light permitted, we might, at first landing, have proceeded quietly and stopped 

 the covered outlet from the house to the water, and thus secured the inmates, 

 and this only by using the utmost caution in approaching without giving them 

 the wind of us, or making the slightest noise, even the crackling of a dry twig 

 under our feet; so religiously did he believe in their superhuman sagacity in 

 discovering and avoiding danger. Thus assured, I took my gun, more from the 

 influence of the habit of- some months of seldom stirring from camp without it, 

 than from any expectation of seeing a beaver. I followed the water to the out- 

 let, while others took the bank; here I stood watching the operations of those 

 above, who had commenced removing the branches of cotton-wood which 

 formed the covering of the domicile. I was startled suddenly by the splashing 

 of the water at my feet, and, looking down, I saw the dusky back of a beaver 

 a few inches under the surface, gliding out into the deep water of the river, and 

 before I could prepare and bring my gun into position, he was out of sight. 

 Nothing could have been easier, had I been prepared, than to have shot him as 

 he thus passed within three feet of the spot on which I stood. Thus, from too 

 much reliance on popular tradition of the unerring instinct of this animal, was 

 I prevented from adding the skin, and description, and measurements of a fresh 

 specimen of the beaver to the trophies of our expedition. As the beaver passed 

 down the stream he was seen to rise for air, abreast of our boat, by some of the 

 men on board. We then proceeded to unroof the house by removing the cotton- 

 wood branches, which covered it for several feet in thickness ; they extended 

 for a considerable width on each side, and covered the passage from the house 

 to the water ; this passage was about fourteen inches square, as neatly excava- 

 ted as a ditcher could have made it with a spade ; it was from twenty-five to 

 thirty feet long, following the scope of the bank, and ending some two or three 

 feet under the water. The branches were laid with their butts uppermost, and 

 formed a complete thatching to the house, nearly weather-proof. The house 

 itself was a vertical excavation into the bank, cylindrical in form and about 

 three and a half feet in diameter ; the slope of the bank, where it was cut, gave 

 it the figure of a section of a cylinder of about four feet high on the side of the 

 bank, and the heighth of the passage to the river, on the other, about fourteen 

 inches. The bottom and walls of this room were smooth and hard as though 

 they had been pressed or beaten, but not plastered. The circle was apparently 

 perfect in form. I should have said, it was rather more than half-way up the 

 bank. Prevost said that the house was unfinished, and that, before winter, the 

 whole interior earth and brush of the sides and roof would have been neatly 

 plastered with clay so as to render it entirely weather-proof. The quantity of 

 cotton-wood branches and saplings used in this structure was enormous; I 

 suspect the measurement would have been about three cords, or as many wagon 

 loads, and so closely impacted that it Wiis only after considerable labor that a 

 breach was made. On the bank above was the area of stump-land where they 

 had felled their timber, taking what was suitable from the most convenient dis- 

 tance. The large block presented this evening was cut from the largest log 

 felled ; the branches only were taken, leaving the trunk where it fell. Small 

 saplings were taken entire. The smaller piece, which is cut at both ends, was 

 the butt of a bough or sapling, which, in their attempt to drag to the bank, had 

 become wedged among a clump of bushes in such a manner that they could not 



[May, 



