ENEMIES 15i 
use them. Male beavers are said to fight among themselves 
during the rutting season, and scars are found on the hides, 
made by the teeth of the combatants. 
In contrast to my experience is the account by George 
G. Goodwin, in Nature Magazine, of a fight he had with a 
trapped beaver. The latter freed itself from the trap just 
as the man, who was waist deep in the water, caught hold of 
a hind leg. The beaver turned on its captor, biting at his 
face, but unsuccessfully. Goodwin had no weapon and 
defended himself with his fist, but without effect. Finally 
the beaver gave up the attack on the face, swung around, 
and bit through the top of the man’s thigh, making a wound 
large enough to put the little finger in. This last attack 
gave the man an opening to get in a blow which laid out the 
animal until it could be dragged ashore and finished with a 
knife. This beaver was said to weigh over sixty pounds. 
This is the first account I have ever seen of a beaver attack- 
ing a man, even when it was trapped. 
Mills stated that he knew of two instances of bobcats 
being killed by beavers, but does not give any particulars. 
If a beaver did choose to make a fight it might easily kill 
an animal the size of a bobcat by a lucky bite in the neck 
severing the jugular vein. 
Grinnell, in the ‘“Cheyenne Indians,” gives some account 
of the method used by this tribe many years ago to capture 
beavers. They used the meat for food and the skins for 
clothing, and trained dogs to hunt them. ‘These dogs were 
small enough to enter the hole in the bank or lodge, and 
still were of fair size. A beaver dam would be broken so 
as to drain the water from the pond. The entrances to the 
lodges or burrows would be located, and a dog sent in. He 
would find the beaver, bark at it and worry it until it was 
angered and fought back, and followed the dog out. The 
latter gradually backed away, inducing the beaver to follow 
