THE AMERICAN BEAVER 



isr 



furnished some of the bea\'er skins 

 shipped on the "Fortune," but it has 

 recently been converted into a cranberry 

 bog and now not even a muskrat is to 

 be found there. 



In some places, notably in England, the 

 beaver is commemorated by names that 

 have long lost their significance, although 

 in many instances they retain more of 

 their original spelling than one might at 

 first imagine. Such are, Beverege, Be- 

 vere Island, Beverecote and Beverly, the 

 last not being named in honor of Sir 

 John Beverly, but being an evolution of 

 " Before leag " or " Beaver Place." 



It is necessary to say only a few words 

 about the 



habits and 

 habitations 

 of the bea- 

 ver, as these 

 are dwelt on 

 at length in 

 every work 

 on natural 

 history.! The 

 beaver is shy 

 and retiring 

 in his habits, 

 as well as 

 nocturnal, 



and this combination of characters, 

 although conducive to longevity in a 

 state of nature, is not a success in a 

 zoological garden. In order to see the 

 beaver at all he must be kept in a 

 cage, where he not unnaturally sulks 



' For the benefit of those who wish to pursue 

 the subject furtlier, a list of the more important or 

 more interesting boolfs and papers is appended: 



The American Beaver and His Works, by Lewis 

 H. Morgan. 



Castorologia: or, The History and Traditions of 

 the Canadian Beaver, by Horace T. Martin, 

 F. Z. S. 



In Beaver World, by Enos A. Mills. 



The Story of the Beaver, by William Daven- 

 port Hulbert. 



Haunts of the Beaver, by A. R. Dugmore. 

 Everybody's Magazine, December, 1901. 



Beaver in the Adirondacks, by H. V. Radford. 



The earliest picture of the beaver, 1684 



and tries to show as little of himself as 

 possible. 



The structures built by the beaver 

 vary somewhat with his surroundings 

 and his house may either stand in 

 moderately deep water, rest against the 

 bank of a river, or as in the Museum 

 group, be erected on the edge of a pond. 

 While usually built of sticks from which 

 the bark has been removed for food, it 

 may, as in some northern streams where 

 food and building material are abundant, 

 be constructed of unpeeled sticks. In 

 any case, the house chamber is above 

 water and here the beavers pass the 

 winter more or less inactively, and here 



the young, 

 ' n u m I3 e r i n g 

 from two to 

 five, are born 

 in May. 



Those who 

 know the 

 animal best 

 look upon 

 the canals 

 constructed 

 for the trans- 

 portation of 

 food supplies 

 as the most 

 remarkable of all his undertakings. 

 Man, with the aid of steam and elec- 

 tricity excavates the Suez and Panama 

 Canals, but the beaver, a creature 

 weighing on an average thirty or forty 

 pounds, with no tools except teeth and 

 paws, digs trenches 150 to 750 feet long 

 and a yard wide and deep. Further 

 than this, in cases where the ground 

 slopes rapidly, the beaver will erect dam 

 after dam, and dig canal after canal 

 until by a succession of steplike levels, 

 the needed food is obtained. 



The dams also vary and may con- 

 sist mainly of earth, or of sticks packed 

 with earth. As in the dam shown 



