DARK FURS. 205 



the other lakes being frozen over. He was 

 about the size of an ordinary full grown rat, but 

 was fully developed and must have been two 

 years old. At first I thought he might be of a 

 second litter, but I thought this was very im- 

 probable, if not quite outside of nature, so I 

 carefully examined the teeth and organs, and 

 found to intents and purposes he was a full 

 grown beaver. 



Writing of full grown beaver puts me in 

 mind of those early trapping days, and the logic 

 of a certain Indian. Then we used to *pay so 

 much a skin for beaver, and graded the skins as 

 big, middling and small. In culling this man's 

 skins I threw one into the pile of middling ones 

 and he immediately said : "That's a big one," 

 and I said it was not and compared it with sev- 

 eral of the large ones. He, however, stoutly 

 maintained it was a big one and said, "Look at 

 the white men, there are big ones and small 

 ones, but they are men the same." I stood cor- 

 rected and placed the disputed skin with his 

 better grown and developed relatives, the Indian 

 gave an almost audible smile, and things went 

 on amicably. 



On the watershed between the valley of the 

 St. Lawrence and Hudson's Bay, marten are 

 prime on the first of October. Beaver, otter 

 and mink are prime on the 25th of October and 



