MODE OF TRAPPING BEAVER. 241 



enjoyment of their respective beats. Each trapper, or 

 family, or association, therefore, has a special round, 

 upon which they make repeated expeditions during 

 the season of the hunt. On the first journey, they 

 carry in and distribute their traps, select and provision 

 their camps, and prepare generally for an arduous 

 winter's work. A single trapper can manage from 

 fifty to seventy traps upon a line thirty or forty miles 

 in circuit. At regular intervals, the traps, after being 

 set, are visited, the captured animals removed, and the 

 traps reset. This round of the traps, with the curing 

 of the skins, fills out their time, and furnishes sys- 

 tematic emploj^ment for the season. 



The life of the trapper, although one of hardship 

 and privation, is full of adventure. They lead, to a 

 greater or less extent, a life of solitude in the track- 

 less forests, encountering dangers of every kind, en- 

 during fatigue and hunger, and experiencing, in return, 

 the pleasures, such as they are, afforded by the hunt. 

 As a class they are generous, reckless, and intelligent, 

 and very companionable. From their relations to 

 each other of their adventures, and of their observa- 

 tions upon the habits of animals, a kind of "animal 

 lore" has been developed and propagated of very 

 ample fullness and range, which, in course of time, 

 may be considered worthy of perpetuation in written 

 form. Their conclusions are not always veritable, as 

 they are prone to be over-credulous; neither are their 

 speculations always sound; but in both they display 

 much acuteness and ingenuity. The regular trappers 

 are an original and peculiar class of men, whose tend- 

 encies of mind have led them away from human 

 society, into a life substantially with the wild animals, 



16 



