SUBSISTENCE OF BEAVERS. 169 



ous, or are entirely undisturbed by trappers. On the 

 Upper Missouri I have seen them swimming in the 

 river in broad day, and also basking in the sun on the 

 tops of their false lodges under the banks. We 

 brought down with us a young beaver caught with a 

 scoop net, while swimming near the river bank. In 

 the Lake Superior region I have seen them generally 

 in the night, while watching on their dams for this 

 purpose. By making a breach in their dams you can 

 compel them to come out, but it will be late in the 

 night before they show themselves, and they are so 

 wary that it is extremely difficult so to conceal your- 

 self in their immediate vicinity as to see them work. 

 After ice has formed in their ponds, they retire to 

 their lodges and burrows for the winter, and they are 

 not seen again, either by day or night, except in rare 

 instances, until a thaw comes, of which they take 

 "advantage to come out after fresh cuttings. It is said 

 that the bark of their winter wood is apt to become 

 soft and sour before spring from soakage in the pond, 

 wherefore a mitigation of the severity of the winter, 

 sufficient to open the ice in their ponds, is in every 

 sense a providential relief. 



In establishing their lodges so as to adapt them to 

 winter occupation, and in the manner of providing 

 their winter subsistence, the beavers display remark- 

 able forethought and intelligence. The severity of 

 the climate in these high northern latitudes lays 

 upon them the necessity of so locating their lodges 

 as to be assured of water deep enough in their 

 entrances, and also so protected in other respects, as 

 not to freeze to the bottom; otherwise they would 

 perish with hunger, locked up in ice-bound habita- 



