The most interesting observation I made the last evening 

 which I could spend on my platform on Poplar Point. Beaver 

 began to show themselves very freely about seven o'clock; 

 once I saw four or five at the same moment About 7:45, a 

 beaver, a yearling to judge by his size, came very carefully 

 out of the house. He hesitated a minute, and then, almost 

 directly below n.e, walked slowly up to a green poplar I had 

 cut the night before, and with a few lateral movements of 

 his jaws, cut off a twig the thickness of a man's thumb. The 

 next moment, seizing the butt with his mouth or forefeet I 

 c-ould net make sure which he swung the leafy branch over 

 i;is left shoulder, from which it slid off almost immediately; 

 he then seized it with his teeth, dragged it into the water, 

 dived with it and took it into the house. No sconer had he 

 entered than the babies of the family set up a lively whining 

 in appreciation, as I imagined, of the prize the big brother 

 had brought in. This was the most intimate glimpse I had 

 of the beavers' hcm.e life and was the only time I saw a 

 beaver on land. 



I noted that the beaver never touched the other poplar tops 

 I had dropped almost on their house, and they had done prac- 

 tically no cutting in the poplar grove near their house. They 

 nearly always left the house at the same exit, and after the 

 old ones had scouted along the shore, both old and young 

 often swam directly to their feeding place about a quarter 

 of a mile to the north. Several times I watched one swim 

 as straight as the crow flies, with a speed of about one hun- 

 dred yards a minute. 



The yearlings did not always heed the danger signals of 

 the parents as implicitly as they would do with the writers 

 of nature fiction. Twice one of the parents became alarmed 

 at my raft moored on the other side of the point and gave 

 the plunge-and-slap signal, but the yearlings near the house 

 paid no attention to it, although the alarmed parent was not 

 more than two hundred feet away. The youngsters reminded 

 me of boys who go their own way in life, feeling satisfied 

 that the old man doesn't know what he's talking about. 



This house on Poplar Point, like two other houses, was 

 also inhabited by muskrats. Contrary to a statement made 



17 



