Canadian Beaver 



following generation. Yet they are still objects of the most in- 

 tense interest to all who desire to read Nature either at first or 

 second hand. 



They are so very like some humble, primitive race of people 

 of peaceful disposition and few wants, industrious and practical in 

 all their affairs, and apparently depending more upon reason and 

 less upon instinct than do the majority of the forest folk. For 

 while it is unquestionably true that almost all of the higher wild 

 animals must use their reasoning powers to think out the various 

 problems of their daily lives, it is equally certain that instinct is 

 of even greater importance to them. 



Just as the lone trapper or hunter, if lacking instinct similar to 

 theirs, and forced to rely wholly upon reason to wrest a living 

 from Nature, would be pretty certain to starve before the winter 

 was half gone. 



Everyone knows that it is the beavers' custom to dam up 

 small streams and build their thatched and mud-plastered log 

 cabins on the margins of the ponds thus made. But the beavers 

 themselves have been so trapped and persecuted as to have been 

 fairly driven to the most remote and secluded parts of the wilder- 

 ness, with men still hot on their trail, and closing in doggedly 

 with murderous determination when with each recurring autumn the 

 beaver fur again becomes thick and silky to tempt their greed. 



At present the scattered families of this inoffensive fugitive 

 race scarcely dare to raise a lodge of any sort, much less any- 

 thing so conspicuous as a dam, and so are compelled to hide 

 in secret burrows beneath the bank, like their cousins of the Old 

 World, who have suffered from man's unwelcome presence for so 

 much longer a period. 



In most parts of this country beavers are supposed to have 

 the protection of the law; but along the hidden rivers, where the 

 few survivors lurk, law is little more than a byword, and just 

 as long as beaver skins are allowed to be bought and sold, any 

 attempt to protect them is bound to prove futile. 



If England and America could agree to make the possession of 

 beaver skins illegal anywhere within their boundaries, and punishable 

 by a heavy fine or imprisonment, good results would certainly 

 follow; for the Hudson's Bay Fur Company would then be obliged 

 to refuse to handle beaver skins, and the trappers to leave them 

 alone. Even then it would probably be a number of years be- 



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