364 THE TRAPPER. 



tooth marks, aud from this can give a very shrewd guess 

 of the number in the camp. I measured the stump of a 

 birch tree freshly cut by beavers on the Memosekel, New 

 Brunswick ; it was between 13 and 14 inches in diameter. 

 The boughs had been neatly lopped off as with an axe, 

 and nothing remained but the trunk, which supplied me 

 and my party with back logs for the night. 



Loth as I am to detract from their character I must 

 confess that beavers cannot fell a tree which way they 

 will. That this power has been ascribed to them I aui 

 aware, but I am convinced to the contrary. Most of the 

 trees they cut fall, I admit, river wards, or towards the 

 water. But why ? Do not the banks always slope that 

 way ? and, consequently, the trees growing on the banks ? 

 Before I became well acquainted with the beaver I fondly 

 hoped that I should find, where one tree had lodged against 

 another, that the second tree had also been cut down. 

 But, no ; instead of felling the obstructing tree, the original 

 one is cut through in a second place. This is a weak spot 

 in their character, but one cannot help admiring their 

 perseverance. 



On a brook in New Brunswick (the Tomogonops) I 

 found a white birch 8 inches in diameter that had had six 

 pieces of a foot in length cut off its butt by the beavers. 

 As each successive cut had been made, the tree descended 

 straight down the length of the piece which fell out, and 

 at last the beavers had given it up in disgust. An old 

 hunter has assured me that on two different occasions he 

 has found the bodies of beavers crushed to death by trees 

 of their own cutting ; and from my own personal observa- 

 tion (and I have seen trees in all stages of being felled, 



