238 THE AMERICAN BEAVER. 



set, which is usually near the bank, and a few inches 

 below the surface of the water. Gum camphor is one, 

 a piece of which is inserted in the split fork of a stick, 

 and the latter is then set in the bank so as to bring 

 the camphor immediately over the trap, but above the 

 water. A beaver, when he scents the pungent odor of 

 the camphor, follows it up until he discovers the sub- 

 stance; whereupon he rises up to reach it, in doing 

 which he is liable to step on the pan of the trap with 

 his hind foot, and thus pay for his curiosity with his 

 life. Trappers also use castoreum, cinnamon, cloves, 

 and oil of juniper for the same purpose. Cloves and 

 cinnamon are dissolved in alcohol and made into a 

 kind of paste, which, when smeared over a stick ad- 

 justed in the same manner, is found to answer equally 

 well as a bait. Traps are also set, at a venture, upon 

 their run-ways, particularly on their solid-bank dams, 

 which always, by some depression, show where they 

 pass in going up and down stream. When set in 

 such places, it is necessary to make a slight excava- 

 tion for the reception of the trap, and to cover it with 

 leaves. They are also set in the water at points 

 where the land juts out into the pond, along which 

 beavers are apt to pass in going up or down the pond. 

 Whenever the trapper discovers a trail, or well- 

 marked line on which beavers travel, either on land 

 or in the water, he avails himself of the knowledge to 

 conceal a trap under their footsteps. 



Another method of catching beavers where they are 

 very numerous, is to drive them from their lodges to 

 their burrows, and having closed the entrances, to 

 open the burrows and pull them out with hooks or 

 by hand. This mode of hunting them was formerly 



