462 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1914. 
BEAVERS. SEALS. . OTTERS. 
Mention has already been made of the secluded valley, parallel 
to the main road through the park from the western entrance, in 
which are pools for the beavers and sea lions, together with other 
inclosures. Plate 21 shows the condition of this valley some years 
ago, when the work of the beavers was more extensive than at present. 
The American beaver, which resembles closely the European 
animal, was once very abundant throughout the United States and 
Canada. The Dutch company that founded the State of New York 
used the beaver as an emblem on the coat of arms of the colony 
because of its abundance and importance, and it is said that the 
Hudson Bay Fur Co. often exported more than 100,000 beaver skins 
per annum. Its fine, soft fur was a source of great profit to trappers 
and hunters. This led to a merciless pursuit of the animal, result- 
ing in its practical extermination in the United States, it bemg now 
found only in thinly settled forest regions and in the Yellowstone 
Park, where it is carefully guarded and preserved. 
Traces of its former existence may be seen in many parts of the 
country, consisting of dams, sometimes hundreds of feet in length 
and of very considerable width, evidently the result of long years 
of work of successive colonies of beavers. In the course of time these 
dams became solid embankments, upon which large forest trees 
flourished. Small ponds and lakelets were thus formed, these being 
particularly numerous upon the smaller affluents of the rivers of 
Canada, New York, Michigan, Wisconsin, and Minnesota. These 
ponds gradually filled up with growths of moss and other plants, 
forming a peaty bog from which trees were absent and which then 
supported grass. The early settlers termed this a ‘‘beaver meadow.” 
The lower part of the city of Montreal is built upon such a forma- 
tion, and there are many such in different parts of the United States. 
Not less than 54 towns in this country have been named from some 
natural association with the beaver. 
The beavers in the park, following their natural instincts, have 
built, in all, three dams, two of which may be seen in plate 21. 
They did this work, enormous when considered in the aggregate, 
unaided, cutting down all unprotected trees and bushes within their 
inclosure, gnawing the trunks and branches into lengths suitable for 
transportation, dragging them for some distance, and piling them 
in a systematic manner across a little rivulet that meandered through 
the valley. Considering the means at their disposal, their method 
would do credit to any civil engineer. They place the bottom layer 
of sticks with the heavier ends downstream, intertwine them with 
sticks and brush, weight them down with stones where the greatest 
pressure is likely to occur, and plaster the whole with mud from the 
