134 THE BEAVER 
and take to eating bark, while Bailey says that young 
beavers may be weaned at two months of age. Dugmore 
says that they come out of the house less than three weeks 
after birth. 
Joseph Dixon, Museum of Vertebrate Zodlogy, University 
of California, has very kindly given me some notes concern- 
ing the breeding of beavers in California. In that state the 
majority of young are born in April, chiefly in the first 
half of the month, though a few litters make their appearance 
during the latter part of March. Mr. Dixon also has record 
of small young, not more than a few days old, having been 
found as late as the first of May. He found, April 15, 1921, 
that the young were fourteen inches long and not more than 
a week old. They made no attempt to escape when the 
house was dug into, and were picked up and handled as 
though they had been kittens. The following season a 
number of houses were visited which contained young 
two or three weeks old, and these could not be captured, 
as they dove into the water through the entrances when an 
attempt was made to dig cautiously into the side of the 
house. In this case the youngsters were admittedly 
frightened from the house. However, even when, so far as 
was known, there had been no disturbance to cause the 
baby beavers to leave the house, it was found by muddy 
tracks at the margin of the pond that young beavers left 
the lodge when from three to four weeks old. In another 
instance a mother beaver and her three young, all about the 
size of large cottontails, were seen to ramble about in the rank 
grass some twenty feet back from the margin of the pond. 
This was late in June, probably six weeks after the other 
baby beavers had been born. This may have been a second 
litter. Mr. Dixon concludes his letter by saying: ‘‘Per- 
sonally, I have every reason to believe that in California 
youngsters begin to venture out, normally, when they are 
about three to four weeks old.”’ 
