TEE BE AVER. 363 



cedar ; the two latter only when no other can be procured. 

 In summer they wander about, stopping here and there to 

 feed. I have heard of their visiting a deserted camp and 

 eating potatoes that they found therein; and it is not 

 an unusual occurrence to find an old mocassin or the lid 

 of a kettle worked up in a beaver house or dam. In winter 

 they pay a daily or nightly visit under the ice to their 

 stores, which are close at hand, and carry off a stick to 

 camp, where they eat the bark at leisure. They are very 

 cleanly in their habits, never making a mess in the camp, 

 which, together with their beds of chips and shapings, 

 they keep scrupulously clean. Periodically they have a 

 cleaning-out day, when the debris of peeled sticks, &c., are 

 thrown out of camp. In thaws and on very mild days 

 they come out from under the ice for a " constitutional " 

 and a little bit of fresh bark. Their tracks in the snow 

 resemble those of an enormous goose, the marks made by 

 the little fore feet or hands being entirely obliterated by 

 the webbed hind ones. 



In no way do the beaver show their superior intelligence 

 over the rest of the brute creation more than by their 

 knowledge of the power of combined efforts. Thus two or 

 more beavers will work at the same tree, chopping away 

 at different sides till the scarps meet and the tree falls. 

 They cut trees about a foot and a half from the ground, 

 sitting on their haunches and tails, their arms against or 

 round the trunk. The chips they take out vary from half 

 an inch to two inches in length, chopped at both ends. 

 I have seen several trees of 5 or 6 inches in diameter 

 cut by a small family of beavers in the course of one 

 night. The hunter tells the age of the beaver by the 



