stroy. From my beginning in that manner of 
life beavers became of special interest. First 
curiosity, then wonder, followed by sympathy 
and pity for them and regret for the part I had 
taken in their ruin and destruction. 
In this little book I have endeavored through 
incidents herein recorded to show culmination to 
a state of mind that caused the abandonment of 
beaver trapping over twenty years ago, and soon 
after, ceasing that manner of life altogether. In 
this latter move my only regret is that it did not 
come sooner, and my earnest hope is that every 
boy with an inclination to hunt and trap may 
find a little time to peruse a copy of “ Beavers— 
their Ways,” before he embarks on such an ill 
omened career as that of a trapper’s life. 
In the sketches that accompany the chapters 
about beaver, the author has drawn freely from 
his former work “Twenty Years on the Trap 
Line,” a little book concerning a trapper’s life, 
printed from original notes, and published by the 
author at Avondale, Pennsylvania, in 1891. The 
book being now out of print, with no expectation 
of its republication, much of its subject matter 
is absorbed in the various incidents relating to a 
hunter’s and trapper’s life as herein presented un- 
der the sub-title “ Other Sketches.” 
