Canadian Beavef 



fore the beavers would venture within sound of civilization oif 

 lose even a little of their well-founded terror of man. 



When a pair of beavers, after having been driven in desper- 

 ation from place to place, finally come upon some hidden forest 

 brook where they think that perhaps at last men will permit 

 them to settle and be happy in their own way for a few 

 years, their first act is to decide upon a suitable location for 

 their pond. 



Then they go to work felling trees for the dam. In order 

 to cut down a tree they gnaw deep parallel grooves around the 

 trunk and then rip out the wood left between these grooves in 

 large chips, their broad teeth splitting them out like a carpen- 

 ter's chisel. Other grooves are then cut still deeper into the tree 

 and the chips split out from between them as before, and so 

 the work goes on until the tree trembles and lurches slightly 

 in the direction of the deepest cut, hangs canting in air for an 

 instant while the last tough fibres hold and then, slowly at first, 

 swings over and comes smashing to the ground. 



Although beavers usually gnaw all around a tree, it has fre- 

 quently been stated on the very best authority, that it is their 

 rule to cut deepest next the water in order that the trunk may fall in 

 that direction and so lessen the distance it will have to be 

 dragged. 



But others claim that they gnaw in equally on all sides and 

 let the tree fall where it will, or lodge hopelessly tangled among 

 its neighbours. 



All of which may only go to show that beavers, like other 

 animals, vary in intelligence, and while some still fell their trees 

 haphazard, others have learned something of the woodsman's 

 craft of cutting. Judging from my own experience 1 should 

 suppose that hardly one tree in ten would be likely to come to 

 the ground if gnawed off carelessly without forethought, though 

 I believe that trees growing near a stream do usually have a 

 tendency to lean a little towards the water. 



When the tree is down the beavers go to work trimming 

 off the branches and cutting the trunk into suitable lengths to 

 be dragged down to the water. 



The dam is made of these short logs and trunks wattled together 

 and filled in with stones and earth, the whole cunningly bent 

 against the current to withstand the pressure of the water. 



147 



