BEAVERS—THEIR WAYS. 81 
dams insummer months. While we frequently hear of 
the giving away or breaking of mill dams by floods, but 
the breaking away of a live beaver dam is seldom ever 
known. The writer in his varied experience in the 
wild west days from New Mexico to the British Posses- 
sions, has no recollection of a single instance in which 
a dam within which beaver were living, ever gave way 
to the force of flood or torrent, no odds how great the 
strain, the rush of waters made against the intricate web 
of sticks, mud, grass and stones that composed these 
enduring dam breasts. 
Ex-Deputy Game Warden Neal, of the Bowers re- 
gime of North Dakota game protection, who, in re- 
siding in the Douglass River district, noted a curious 
piece of engineering work executed by the beaver fam- 
ily that made their home on the middle branch of that 
stream. This was the digging of a canal to divert the 
water to the edge of a cut bluff from which issued sev- 
eral clear water springs. The ground was thoroughly 
saturated and boggy from the bluffs to the main stream, 
a distance of ahundred yards or more. They first re- 
built an old dam and raised the water bank full. They 
ran a straight line from the upper side of the dam in 
line to tap the upper spring at the bluffs. The work 
was never completed, however, and remained in the 
order of unfinished business with the beaver. Whether 
they were killed or driven away or had relinquished the 
job asa poor investment for the labor required, Mr. 
Neal could not determine. The work in its unfinished 
state can yet be seen. There was nothing unusual in 
turning the courses of streams by the beavers, as any 
one who has opportunity of observing them closely in 
