TEE BEAVER. 357 



of wood cut very fine. The walls were from 4 to 5 feet 

 thick, and made altogether of earth and wood. There 

 were three entrances, all under water. Close to the camp 

 was the storehouse, an accumulation of fresh logs and 

 branches submerged in the water for winter use. I calcu- 

 lated that there must have been half-a-dozen ordinary 

 cartloads, and the pile was not completed. The peeled 

 boughs had been piled on the house and dam. Some of 

 them had been hauled a distance of 60 yards by land, and 

 twice that distance by water. There were six well-made 

 roads, 12 or 14 inches in width, and worn quite smooth 

 and hard, running into the woods in different directions. 

 Trees of all sizes, from a foot in diameter downwards, that 

 had been felled by the beaver, lay scattered all round the 

 pond and in the water, some freshly cut, others decayed 

 and covered with moss. The boughs of the larger ones 

 had been lopped off and carried to the storehouse, the 

 bark of the stems having been eaten on the spot. Smaller 

 trees had been felled, cut into logs, and carried bodily off. 

 Saplings of the size of an axe handle had been cut as 

 with one slanting blow of an axe, but the larger trees 

 were gnawed all round. Dry sticks and roots that ob- 

 structed their roads had been cut neatly off at the proper 

 breadth, and the pieces thrown aside. 



This was the first old-established colony of beavers that 

 I had ever seen. I came upon it accidentally as I was 

 cruising about the woods many miles from the settlements. 

 Anyone who is acquainted with the Canadian forest knows 

 how few signs of animal life are to be seen in it, and how 

 eagerly the faintest track in the moss or leaves, or cut in 

 the bark of a tree, is examined by the hunter or trapper. 



