62 JOURNAL OF THE TRINIDAD 



To go on with the description of this particular dam, up- 

 right stakes, most of them cut and carried by the beaver, some 

 floated down and then "placed," had been put in nearly per- 

 pendicular where there was little or no strung current, but with 

 a very considerable batten or slant, on either side where the 

 current was strong. Into this barricade branches, driftwood and 

 other stakes had been stink and woven, and the whole then made 

 solid with stones and mud, so thai ii formed a solid wall perhaps 

 8 or 1) feet wide at the bottom, and tapering up to a width of 

 about a foot at the top, with a slight semi-cireuiar sweep down- 

 wards, and a carefully made lip for the surplus water to run over. 

 Where the current of the stream is very rapid dams are made 

 with a similar sweep upwards— convex to the current. 



This dam had created a small lake s< in extent, 



and of very unequal depth, dotted all abou with the beaver 

 houses, with their smooth, round, well plastered root's rising about 

 a foot or more above the level of the water. The entrance to 

 these houses is always under water, and the houses contain 

 several stories or rooms, communicating with each other. 



The Indians say, and from my own observation I believe it 

 is true, that in addition to their favourite food a plant called 

 Nuphar lutein, }, which grows at the bottom of lakes and rivers, 

 and is something like a cabbage stalk, the beaver stores a winter 

 supply by sticking into the mud in the bottom of the deeper 

 parts of its dam, the tender branches of birch, poplar, and willow 

 trees on the bark of which it also feeds. 



A great deal of "savvy" and care is required to successfully 

 trap beaver. The hunter generally goes to the spot in the 

 stream or lake by his canoe, and carefully from his canoe looks 

 along the bank until he finds a trail by which the beaver are in 

 the habit of leaving and returning to the water. The hunter 

 must not, if he can possibly help it, get upon the bank. His 

 scent would betraj- him and no beaver would come near that spot. 

 He sets the trap (steel trap) in the water at the end of the trail. 

 It must be a certain depth. Not too shallow, because if it is, the 

 beaver gets caught by & fore-leg ; in which case he invariably (no 

 doubt after the most careful consideration of whether there is 

 any other possible manner of getting away) bites oil' his /ore-leg, 

 leaves it in the trap and scuttles away with three legs. If, as is 

 often the case, the hunter has to fasten the chain of the trap 

 round a sapling or tree above water, he carefully afterwards 

 laves water over the chain, the tree, the bank, or anything that 

 he may have touched to take away the scent, he then sticks some 

 tender saplings or slips of birch, poplar etc., (cut somewhere else) 

 after carefully washing them, here and there about the trap, 

 handling them below water. Finally he sprinkles from a bottle, 



