282 DWELLINGS OF MUSKRAT AND BEAVER—GILPIN. 
last beaver in Annapolis County. A few years afterwards they 
recuperated themselves so that there were fifty skins brought to 
market during one year from one section of country alone, and 
within a range of twelve miles from Annapolis Royal I visited 
five of these stations in more or less stages of repair or deser- 
tion. They are now diminishing again, and notwithstanding 
their resolute attempt of holding their own, must inevitably fade 
away before that army of lumberers who invade their silent 
homes with crash of axe and loud ery to toiling cattle, and who, 
worse than all, by artificial dams, alter the level of the inland 
lakes, so that no sheet of water of any magnitude may be found 
that has not its waters deepened by dams to create a higher head, 
which is used at stated times in making artificial freshets, carry- 
ing with them the stores of lumber to the sea. 
In this paper I have endeavored to put before you the dwel- 
lings of our two constructive mammals, the first of aquatic grasses 
alone, yet a beautiful example of instinctive labour, formed of the 
simplest materials and nearest at hand, regular cones—remind- 
ing us, with their submarine entrance, of the ancient lake dwel- 
lings of a prehistoric race, or of the conical ant hills of Africa, 
and certainly more perfect constructions than those still inhabited 
by the degraded Melanasian in Australia. The other construc- 
tions are of a less perishable nature, and with their dams 
constructed of timber, oftentimes nearly three feet in diameter, 
and varied so often by external circumstances that we must 
allow instinctive, in some cases, to precede skilled labour. No one 
coming upon the beaver dams still remaining in our forests, 
seeing heavy timbers felled by gnawing, to fall at a certain 
_ point; seeing upright posts standing in the running stream; see-' 
ing parallel logs gnawed to certain lengths and interlaced between 
these uprights, and the boles of living trees on the stream sides , 
and again, seeing the top horizontal bars loaded with stone to 
prevent them from floating, but must admit the narrow margin 
betwixt instinet and reason ; and yet I give all these facts as to 
be seen by the idlers on the stream flowing down the Valley of 
Annapolis, N. Scotia. 
