174 THE AMERICAN BEAVER. 



lection. As the tree lodged in falling, it did not break 

 at the point where it was cut. This tree was also a 

 yellow birch, and stood on the border of Grass Lake, 

 a few rods above the great dam. Since the deepest 

 incision was upon the pond side of the tree, it seemed 

 to have been their intention to fell it into the pond; 

 but their expectations in this respect, if indulged, were 

 disappointed; and further than this, their labor was 

 lost by the lodgment of the tree. It measures seven- 

 teen inches in diameter below the incision, and ten 

 and a half above it, with a circumference at the place 

 where it was made of three feet four inches. The cut 

 was commenced six inches above the ground, and 

 was twelve inches wide up and down the trunk of the 

 tree. This tree cutting was two years old when I 

 brought it away in 1861. It is quite a common prac- 

 tice with beavers to fell trees into ponds and lakes 

 for the purpose of submerging their branches, and 

 thus preserving them, with all their small shoots and 

 twigs, under water, where they may be accessible 

 throughout the winter under the ice. Along the 

 skirts of large ponds, where deciduous trees are found 

 growing, numbers of trees thus fallen into the pond 

 are seen; their conical stubs showing quite plainly by 

 whom they were cut down. I have a second tree 

 cutting precisely similar to this, the parts being un- 

 separated by the fall, measuring sixteen inches in 

 diameter below the incision, thirteen above it, and 

 three feet three inches in circumference at the point 

 where the incision was made. 



Beavers occasionally cut the wild-cherry tree, al- 

 though it is somewhat doubtful whether they eat its 

 bark. I found one of this description on the upper 



