GNAWING PROPENSITIES. 269 



the beavers now and then cut off the foot by 

 which they are held, in order to make their es- 

 cape. 



The beaver which we brought from Boston to 

 New York was fed principally on potatoes and 

 apples, which he contrived to peel as if assisted 

 with a knife, although his lower incisors were 

 his only substitute for that useful implement. 

 While at this occupation the animal was seated 

 on his rump, in the manner of a ground-hog, 

 marmot, or squirrel, and looked like a very large 

 wood-chuck, using his fore-feet, as squirrels and 

 marmots are wont to do. 



This beaver generally slept on a good bed of 

 straw in his cage, but one night having been taken 

 out and placed at the back of the yard in a place 

 where we thought he would be secure, we found 

 next morning to our sur}3rise that he had gnawed 

 a large hole through a stout pine door which se- 

 parated him from that part of the yard nearest 

 the house, and had wandered about until he fell 

 into the space excavated and walled up outside 

 the kitchen window. Here he was quite en- 

 trapped, and having no other chance of escape 

 from this pit, into which he had unluckily fallen, 

 he gnawed away at the window-sill and the sash, 

 on which his teeth took such effect that on an 

 examination of , the premises we found that a car- 

 penter and several dollars' worth of work were 

 23* 



