BE A VERS, 103 



female would on such occasions proceed to a beaver-colony, and, after cutting a 

 series of holes in the ice around each lodge, in which nets were placed, the lodges 

 themselves were dug open. Some of the animals would be killed in their sleeping- 

 places, others were caught in the nets, while others were hunted by the dogs 

 accompanying the party to their burrows, where they were dug out. Some 

 individuals were, however, always allowed to escape, in order to re-populate the 

 colony. With the increasing demand for skins as the country was opened up by 

 Europeans, the Indians resorted to more effectual modes of capture, the rivers and 

 ponds being staked across at the commencement of a raid, in a manner which 

 prevented the escape of a single member of the colony. Subsequently steel traps 

 were introduced, but, from the nature of the beaver's food, it was long before an 

 attractive bait could be discovered. At length it was found that castoreum itself 

 was a deadly lure, and from that date the traps have always been baited with some 

 preparation of that drug. So attractive is castoreum to the animals by which it is 

 produced, that a beaver which swam away with a trap attached to one leg has 

 been known to be caught in another trap on the following day ; and there is an 

 instance recorded where one of these animals, after having gnawed off a leg in 

 order to escape, again suffered itself to be ensnared. 



The great natural enemy of the beaver is the glutton, or wolverene, whose 

 common Canadian name of carcajou is a corruption of the Indian word 

 quickwahuy, said to mean " beaver-eater." The glutton either digs the beavers 

 out of their lodges, or catches them by lying in wait in the woods. 



The Hudson's Bay Company have wisely assigned certain islands in their 

 territory as beaver-preserves, where a certain number of the animals are killed 

 every third year only. It has been proposed to establish "beaver -ranches" in 

 America, but, as Mr. Martin points out, the attempts hitherto made to domesticate 

 these animals do not hold out much encouragement as to the success of the project. 

 It is true that beavers live and become fairly tame in menageries (where, from 

 their nocturnal habits, they are but rarely seen), but they rapidly deteriorate, losing 

 the brilliant gloss of their coats, and acquiring dull, listless habits. 



The European beaver makes its first appearance in the " forest- 

 ' bed" of the Norfolk coast, belonging to the lower part of the Pleistocene 

 period. Here it was accompanied by the giant extinct beaver (Trogontherium), 

 distinguished not only by its superior size, but by differences in the structure of 

 the skull and teeth. Its range extended to Siberia. Beavers belonging to the 

 living genus occur in the Pliocene strata of Europe and the Miocene of North 

 America. The earliest European beaver is the Chalicomys, which is found in the 

 Miocene beds of the Continent, and was of considerably smaller size than the living 

 forms, while it differed from all living Rodents in having a perforation at the 

 lower end of the upper arm-bone or humerus. 



