110 THE BEAVER 
even less, invariably of very small trees, an inch or two 
through. I found a group of half a dozen aspen stumps, 
three to four feet high; the trunks were lying there unused. 
Possibly they were cut when the snow was deep, and the 
woodcutters were caught by some enemy, cougar, wolf 
orcoyote. Sometimes a stump, which at first glance appears 
unusually high, is seen on a little closer examination really 
not to be out of the ordinary, due to the circumstances under 
which it was cut. In the Longs Peak region, Colorado, I 
found an aspen stump forty-nine inches high. It stood 
beside a large rock, and it was very plain that the beaver 
stood on the rock when it cut it. The trunk was still at- 
tached to the stump, and green leaves were on the tree, 
though its tip was resting on the ground. Many a tree is 
cut by a beaver working from a fallen log, and stumps cut 
on a hillside where the work is mostly done from above 
will average higher than those cut on level ground. 
By the Lewis River, thirteen miles below the Thumb, I 
came across a group of most unusually high stumps, all 
lodge-pole pines. They varied from 43 up to 8 feet 8 inches 
in height. I think the last must be a record. I have seen 
no reference elsewhere to one as high. The tree was six 
inches in diameter. The other trees ranged in size up to 
nearly twenty inches through. Evidently they had been 
cut when the snow was deep, three feet and upward, pre- 
sumably in the spring. Other trees around had patches 
of bark gnawed off at about the same heights. Still others 
had been attacked close to the ground. One tree had a spiral 
notch, beginning 51 inches above the ground, and going more 
than completely round the trunk (Figs. 62 to 66). 
By far the greater number of trees felled by beavers are 
small; possibly eight inches in diameter would cover the 
majority, but that does not prevent them from attacking 
much larger trees at times. The large cottonwood, and ash 
