MODE OF TRAPPING BEAVER. 231 



is shown by the fall of the water in the lodge entrances, 

 he goes to the dam, after night has set in, and com- 

 mences its repair. While thus engaged, he is in constant 

 danger of springing the trap by stepping on its pan 

 inadvertently. If taken by either of the fore feet, he 

 is very apt to break the bones in turning around the 

 trap, thus freeing himself; but if caught by either hind 

 leg, his case is hopeless. He immediately plunges into 

 the deep water of the pond, where his course is soon 

 arrested by the stake and chain. It is a part of the 

 trapper's merciless plan to drown the animal, for the 

 double purpose of preventing him from breaking away 

 and of saving his body under water, where it will be 

 inaccessible to beasts of prey. To accomplish this 

 end, two contrivances are resorted to, of which the 

 most simple is an extra stake set a short distance 

 beyond the first, around which the beaver is quite cer- 

 tain to coil the chain, and thus drown himself, in his 

 attempts to escape; and the other is the pole-slide. A 

 dry pole, ten or twelve feet long, with a prong at one 

 end to prevent the ring of the chain from slipping off, 

 is secured to the bank or dam by a hook driven down 

 into the ground near the trap. The small end of the 

 pole — the ring being run up to the large end near the 

 hook — is then immersed in the pond as far out as it 

 will reach. When a beaver is caught, he dives and 

 swims in the direction to which the pole leads, the 

 ring sliding down to the end. In the deep water thus 

 reached, the weight of the chain and trap, by which 

 his motions are embarrassed, prevents his rising to 

 the surface, and he is soon an unresisting victim of 

 the trapper's art. 



Captain Wilson, before referred to, on one occasion 



