694 SOME PRIVATE ZOOS. 



photographic lens alone could imprison the image of more than one or 

 two of the most trusting. Only when their race is run and their per- 

 v^erted morality" calls for the euthanasia of an unerring rifle does their 

 owner seek them out and end each doomed career. The most interest- 

 ing niembers of this assorted family — the eight beavers of Montana 

 stock — do not put in an appearance until daylight wanes, and those 

 with thoughts of evening engagements in town and return trains must 

 be content with the sight of their wonderful dams and take the engi- 

 neers themselves on trust. Further negative and positive evidence, 

 too, of their restless energy they ma}" find in the spectacle of splen- 

 did trees either sheathed with iron mail against those untiring teeth 

 or else gnawed throiigh more than a moiet}" of their thickness. The 

 wood that is given to them ever}^ day provides both nourishment and 

 exercise, since the saplings of beech or fir are propped upright in the 

 earth, and the beavers have to work hard for each meal of bark. 

 Nature has furnished the beaver so that it must either labor unceas- 

 ingly or sicken to the death, and work they do beyond any other 

 creature on earth. No strikes, no eight-hours' creed; but an aston- 

 ishing application to the work of destruction. The woods provided 

 for the colony at Leonardslee are not of the haj'dest, but Sir Edmund 

 Loder has in his museum a mighty fragment of British oak, the iron 

 liardness of which was no match for their teeth. Indeed, one would 

 not at first sight gather the meaning of that unobtrusive specimen of 

 damaged wood, hidden away as it is in that jostling crowd of elephant, 

 boar, tiger, antelope, goat, and gazelle, all brought back b}^ the owner 

 from the sands and snows of four continents. The Leonardslee beavers 

 have so dammed the water in which they make their home, that no 

 visitor would be likel}" to trace unaided its original course to the sea. 

 Nature is, however, sometimes stronger than even the beavers, and 

 there was a sorry spate two j'^ears back that washed the beavers a dis- 

 tance of 2 miles into some eel traps, from which they were presently 

 rescued and restored to their anxious owner. Old female beavers 

 occasionally' make mischief in the otherwise peaceful little colony; for 

 like old hen grouse, they grow ver}^ jealous of their juniors once they 

 have done with the softer emotions of life, and their pugnacit}' is 

 incurable. When their case is thus past remedy, they are eliminated. 

 An operation is also sometimes needed for the overgrowing teeth, and 

 it takes five men to hold a self-respecting beaver still enough for the 

 purpose, one gripping each leg, while a fifth keeps the ever-ready teeth 

 gripped on a piece of soft wood. It would, I imagine, take a Mussul- 

 man to photograph beavers in the natural state. The ordinary patience 

 of Western photographers is not equal to the ordeal. But your Mus- 

 sulman would uncomplainingly sit beside his subject's dwelling for a 

 month or two, never leaving his post for such petty considerations as 

 rest or refreshment, and he would, with a whispered "Inshallah!" of 



