CANALS, TRAILS, AND LANDING PLACES 93 
figures a trail, or ‘‘tote road” as he calls it, cut through the 
crest of a bank in the Adirondacks about a hundred feet 
above the water. 
Where there is, as is often the case, tall rank grass growing 
on the shore of a stream or pond, trails through it are de- 
cidedly noticeable. The beavers crush the grass down on the 
ground, and often bring mud out on their feet, making a 
very well defined road. Often at these trails a considerable 
space is trampled down on the shore, apparently where the 
beavers have landed. I have called such spots “landing 
places.”” From the fact that peeled sticks are often found at 
them they may be used as feeding places (Figs. 40 and 41). 
Here may be mentioned the ‘‘forms’”’ described by Johnson 
as seen by him in Minnesota. ‘They were located close to 
the bank, so that the occupant could get into the water 
quickly, and were used by the beavers in the daytime, 
either as sunning or resting places. He says they were 
more or less shallow depressions in the ground, roughly oval 
in outline. Sometimes they had a little bedding, of either 
small chips or dry twigs and grass. As arule they were free 
from peeled sticks. None of the places which I have ex- 
amined myself answers this description, though I have seen 
a place where the grass was crushed down as if an animal 
had been lying there. 
Many trails will show the marks where logs have been 
dragged over them, the end of the log having left a distinct 
furrow in the ground. In other cases where brush has been 
dragged alongside the beaver, the scratches made by the 
ends of the twigs are plainly visible. I have seen this not 
only in gravel and sand, but also in snow when it has fallen 
early in the season when the animals were still harvesting 
their winter food. The mark made by a log is somewhat 
similar to that made when a log is drawn over the ground by 
a man or horse (Fig. 43). 
