242 THE AMERICAN BEAVER. 



and with Nature in her most rugged forms. Many of 

 them, by natural endowments, were deserving of a 

 higher destiny. 



It is one of their customs, and one which served 

 me a useful purpose, to hang up the skulls of captured 

 animals upon bushes and limbs of trees on the lines 

 of their routes. This practice is alluded to by Samuel 

 P. Ely, Esq , in the following letter, which I take the 

 liberty to insert for its humorous reference to this 

 custom. Having written to him for some beaver 

 skulls to complete my collection, his answer came 

 under date of February 26, 1866, as follows: "I can 

 obtain the skulls, and have arranged with two differ- 

 ent trappers for thirty each. If they both fulfill their 

 engagements, your craniology of the beaver will be 

 unimpeachable. Accompanying them will be an oc- 

 casional mink, otter, and lynx skull, which may be 

 useful for purposes of comparison. It is fortunately 

 quite easy to procure these skulls. It appears that a 

 custom is quite prevalent among trappers to hang up, 

 among the bushes on their line, the skulls of the 

 animals whose fur and flesh they have appropriated; 

 and it is nothing more than the collection of them on 

 one of their tours to get thirty or forty specimens. 

 Since nothing of this kind is done without motive, 1 

 present you gratuitously my theory on that point. 

 1st. It is subjectively encouraging to the trapper, 

 when the hunt fails him for a time, and his traps are 

 empty, to look upon the memorials of his past success. 

 " 2d. It is objectively calculated to produce on the 

 living animals, which also view these relics, a feeling 

 of resignation to the fate, which, once deemed finally 

 inevitable, they are the less careful to avoid. 



