236 THE AMERICAN BEAVER. 



soon be discovered, and seized with avidity for trans- 

 portation to the lodge. When a beaver has thus 

 found it, and ascertained that it is fast at one end, he 

 follows it up for the purpose of cutting it off — very 

 naturally desiring to secure the whole of the stick. 

 This brings him immediately over the trap ; and if the 

 trap is judiciously placed, it will be next to a miracle 

 if the unsuspecting victim does not step upon its pan 

 before the stick is severed. This has always been 

 found one of the most successful methods of trapping. 

 After a trap has been set in this way, the trapper 

 throws snow into the hole cut through the ice, to 

 hasten the freezing over of the opening, and leaves 

 the place to quiet until his next round among his 

 traps brings him again to the spot. 



Another method, of Indian invention, and which, 

 for its deliberate wdckedness, surpasses all others, if 

 the business itself admits of gradations in cruelty, con- 

 sists in staking around the pile of winter wood of a 

 beaver family, for the purpose of forcing the whole of 

 them, one after the other, by hunger, into the death- 

 pen thus contrived for their ensnarement. By sound- 

 ing on the ice, they are able to discover where these 

 piles are deposited; after which stake-holes are cut 

 through the ice, and dry stakes are driven in so as to 

 form a palisade entirely around their stock of winter 

 provisions. On the line of their run-way from the 

 lodge to this pile one of the stakes is pulled out, and 

 a light, dry twig is put down loose in its place. When 

 these arrangements are completed, the trapper rolls 

 himself up in his blanket and lies down upon the ice 

 to watch for a movement of the twig, which must oc- 

 cur whenever a beaver enters the inclosure. If he is 



