Beaver 453 



Sluggish streams and small lakes with clay banks that are envi- 

 well-wooded with aspen and willow are the favourite haunts ^^^t 

 of the Beaver. Streams that run in rocky beds, or that dry up 

 in summer, and large rock-bound lakes are equally shunned. 



The individual range is very small for so large an animal. home_ 



111* 1 1 ■ RANG! 



When the pair have found and settled m a place that suits 

 them they do not travel half a mile from home. When, on 

 the other hand, an unmated Beaver is seeking a partner or a 

 good location, he may wander for a dozen miles. 



At Big Dam Lake, 40 miles east of Kippewa, Quebec, 

 on September 21, 1905, I saw much Beaver work and learned 

 from Mittigwab, the Indian guide, that all of this was the work 

 of one old male Beaver that had lived here alone for two or 

 three years. He wanders as much as 15 miles up stream from 

 the Lake and ij miles from water, in search of company, 

 especially in early spring when the ice first breaks up. 



But his quest of a mate has been unsuccessful so far (1905), 

 in spite of much advertising, for his mud-pies, with a dash of 

 informational castor, were on every corner and point for at 

 least 100 miles of shore.'' 



The dam is the most famous if not the most remarkable of the 

 the Beaver's undertakings. It is a vast structure of sticks, stones 

 and roots, mud and sod laid across a running stream to back 

 up the water, ensure the Beavers depth enough to protect them 

 from their enemies all summer, and preclude all danger of 

 its freezing to the bottom in winter. Morgan describes' two 

 kinds, the open stick dam, faced with mud on the up-stream 

 side and through the top of which the water trickles all along; 

 and the solid-bank dam which is of earth and has an overflow 

 at one place, where it is reinforced with sticks. I take it that 

 the latter is simply a very old dam in which the sticks have 

 rotted away from the main structure, and which the grass and 

 growing stuff have solidified into a green bank. 



'While this is in press I learn that his eflforts have been rewarded, and he is now 

 the happy patriarch of a large community. 

 ^ Loc. ciL, pp. 84-5. 



