THE BEAVER. 247 



settled this question, it goes to the opposite side of the tree, 

 and with two or three powerful bites cuts away the wood, so 

 that the tree becomes overbalanced and falls to the ground. 



This point having been reached, the animal proceeds to cut 

 up the fallen trunk into lengths, usually a yard or so in length, 

 employing a similar method of severing the wood. In conse- 

 quence of this mode of gnawing the timber, both ends of the 

 logs are rounded and rather pointed. In the Zoological Gardens 

 maybe seen many excellent examples of timber which has been 

 cut by the Beaver. The logs and stumps which project a foot 

 or so from the ground are so neatly pointed that very few visitors 

 notice them, thinking them to be cut by the hand of man. 



The next part of the task is, to make these logs into a dam. 

 Now, whereas some persons have endeavoured to make the 

 Beaver a more ingenious animal than it really is, and have 

 accredited it with powers which only belong to mankind, others 

 have gone to the other extreme, and have denied the existence 

 of a regularly built dam, saying that it is entirely accidental, 

 and caused by the logs that are washed down by the stream, 

 after the Beavers have nibbled off all the bark. 



That this position is untenable is evident from the acknow- 

 ledged fact that the dam is by no means placed at random in 

 the stream, just where a few logs may have happened to lodge, 

 but is set exactly where it is wanted, and is made so as to suit 

 the force of the current. In those places where the stream 

 runs slowly, the dam is carried straight across the river, but in 

 those where the writer has much power, the barrier is made in 

 a convex shape, so as to resist the force of the rushing water. 

 The power of the stream can, therefore, always be inferred from 

 the shape of the dam which the Beavers have built across it. 



Some of these dams are of very great size, measuring two or 

 three hundred yards in length, and ten or twelve feet in thick- 

 ness, and their form exactly corresponds with the force of the 

 stream, being straight in some parts, and more or less convex 

 in others. 



The dam is formed, not by forcing the ends of the logs into 

 the bed of the river, but by laying them horizontally, and cover- 



