MPs 
BEAVERS—THEIR WAYS 51 
pair of them. The Millet beaver was fed principally 
upon raw potato diet to which he seemed very fond, but 
from lack of proportional bark diet or other cause the 
young beaver sickened and died after abeut a year of 
confinement, but Mr. Millet said the little fellow had 
never been so rugged as the one slain by the deputy 
warden. 
From the experiences herein recorded it will be noted 
the want of care and mismanagement in general were 
the causes which led to these unsuccessful attempts at 
the domestication of wild beavers. A more painstaking 
knowledge as to their feed, plenty cf water and more 
comfortable living quarters, could have been all that 
would have been necessary in each individual case to 
have kept these animals in perfect health, which might 
be added also a companionship of their own kind, al- 
though except for propagating purposes, this is not al- 
ways necessary as ‘‘bachelor beavers” are quite com- 
mon among the wild ones. Trappers frequently find 
old beaver living alone in a small house and a small feed 
pile of winter provender—a grandaddy beaver per- 
haps—with his wooden spoon. 
One more attempt was made by the writer toward 
beaver domestication. A young female specimen of the 
grass kind was trapped at one of the upper dams of 
Douglass River in the autumn of 1896. It had been 
caught without injury to its feet, and in other ways was 
in the pink of condition. But being of the grass-root 
feed kind, and not knowing the particular roots on which 
they subsisted, I gave cottonwood, boxelder and wiliow 
twigs, with an occasional change to potatoes and ruta 
bagas. The animal wasa yearling and never took kind- 
