MIDLAND UNION GENEBAl, BUSINESS. 161 



engine; the Eev. Edwin Smith, M. A., flint and other implements of 

 the stone age found in tlie Trent Valley, near Nottingham, fossils 

 from Cromer, bones and teeth of elephants, dc, beetles (chiefly local), 

 rare British plants, galvanometers, showing currents in living plants 

 and thermo-electric phenomena ; Mr. Appleby Stephenson, M.D., 

 Japanese, Indian, and Chinese curiosities, books of autographs, and 

 rare prints ; Mr. Stones, case of ferns ; Mr. J. J. Harris Teall, M.A., 

 F.G.S., microphotographs of rock sections; Mr. W. E. Thornton, local 

 rock and other geological specimens ; Mr. C. H. Torr, New Zealand 

 ferns; Messrs. G. E. Webster and Co., sanitary gas stoves for green- 

 houses and bedrooms; Mr. E. Wilson, F. G. S., Keuper fishes, Carboni- 

 ferous fishes, local geological sketches and diagrams, photographs of 

 rock scenery, flake of grey chalk from Channel Tunnel ; Mr. D. 

 Wright, stereoscopic gallerj', with views of foreign scenery. Micro- 

 scopes were exhibited by Messrs. H. Blandy, G. E. C. Casey, T. W. 

 Cave, Mrs. Cowen. Messrs. C. E. Crick, R. T. Higham. J. Levick, 

 H. Miller, C. Perry, H. E. Perry, John Eogers, G. B. Rothera, E. 

 Smith, J. Smith, J. J. H. Teall, W. E. Thornton, and J. White. 



NOTES ON BEAVEKS AND THE BUTE BE A VERY. 



BY EGBERT DE HAilEL. 



(Continued from page 104.) 



About the months of July and August the male beavers and last 

 year's young, who have been enjoying the spring and summer amongst 

 the woods, collect in large numbers on the lakes and watercourses, on 

 which they had left their houses and females in the spring, for the 

 purpose of uniting into society, and of repairing or adding to their 

 villages. 



These villages are very interesting, and consist of hovels, cabins, and 

 stores, with the addition, in the case of a watercourse, of a dam, which 

 is not required if the village is situated on a lake. 



The following description will give you a good general idea of the 

 whole arrangement, to which I will afterwards add some further 

 details : — 



In rivers or brooks where the water is subject to risings and fallings, 

 they build a bank, which traverses the watercourse from one side to 

 the other like a sluice, and is often 80 to 100 feet long by 10 or 12 

 feet broad at the base. One on the Metapediac in New Brunswick was 

 150 yards long, and by its aid the beavers had converted a stream about 

 15 or 20 feet wide into a pool an acre in extent and 8 feet deep in the 

 middle. This dam was semicircular and convex to the stream. The 

 spot for building it had been chosen with remarkable judgment, and 

 all natural features, such as little islands, rocks, and stumps of trees, 

 had been turned to good account. The centre of this dam was about 

 5 feet high, and so compact that it took two men with axes an hour to 

 cut a 6-feet aperture through it. 



The camp was situated near the centre of the pool, on the original 

 bank of the stream ; it was about the size and shape uf an ordinary 



