ISO 



THE GNAWERS OR RODENTS. 



and the regions lying to the west of the 

 Mississippi. Only here and there, as, for 

 example, on the small islands of the Rhone 

 near Aries, in Bohemia and Silesia, a few 

 specimens are to be found; but elsewhere, 

 except in a few streams in which some lovers 

 of zoology have allowed one or two beavers 

 to live in a state of 

 freedom, the beaver 

 has fortunately been 

 extirpated in the cul- 

 tivated parts of 

 Europe. 



[Among other fdmilies 

 of beavers that have been 

 maintained in a state of 

 freedom or semi- freedom 

 by lovers of zoology is 

 one belonging to the 

 Marquis of Bute in the 

 grounds of Mount 

 Stuart, Isle of Bute. 

 Eight beavers had been 

 procured by the marquis 

 in January, 1875, and in 

 September, 1877, the 

 family was visited by the 

 late Mr. Frank Buckland 

 in company with Mr. 

 Bartlett of the Zoologi- 

 cal Gardens, London. 

 Of that visit an interesting account is given in an 

 article afterwards published in Notes and Jottings 

 from Animal Life. At some little distance from 

 the house above named, says Mr. Buckland, "there 

 is a lonely pine-wood. Through part of this wood 

 runs a natural stream. In the centre of the wood 

 a stone wall has been built in such a manner 

 as to keep the beavers perfectly quiet and undis- 

 turbed. 



"As far as could be ascertained by the curator 

 of the beavery there were twelve beavers. There 

 were certainly one or more young ones in the big 

 house which these most intelligent animals had 

 erected. These when born are about as large as 

 rats; and from their size and other observations 

 the curator thinks that beavers have two litters of 

 cubs in the year. 



"On entering the inclosure one might easily im- 

 agine that a gang of regular woodcutters had been 



Fig. 208. — The Common Dormouse [^ (uscardinus avellanarius). p. 149, 



at work felling the trees all around them. Wood'- 

 cutters had indeed been at work very busily, but 

 they were not biped labouring men working with 

 sharp axes, but fur-clad quadrupeds, armed by 

 nature with exceedingly sharp powerful teeth. 



"The original stream, which flows gently down 

 a slight incline, is now divided into one larger and 

 two smaller ponds by means of dams or weirs, 



which the beavers have 

 built directly across the 

 run of the water. 



"It is difficult, if not 

 impossible, to see these 

 wonderful dam -makers 

 at work, as they gener- 

 ally, I hear, are out at 

 night and are very shy 

 beasts. From the struc- 

 ture they have made it 

 is evident that they work 

 with a design, I may 

 even say with a definite 

 plan. The trees have 

 been cut down in such 

 a manner that they shall 

 fall in the position in 

 which the beaver thinks 

 they would be of the 

 greatest service to the 

 general structure, gener- 

 ally right across the 

 stream. The cunning 

 fellows seem to have 

 found out that the lowest dam across the river 

 would receive the greatest pressure of water upon 

 it. This dam, therefore, is made by far the strong- 

 est. They seem to have packed, repaired, and 

 continually attended to the tender places which 

 the stream might make in their engineering work. 



"A fact still more curious — the custodian of the 

 beavers pointed out to us a portion of the work 

 where the dam was strutted up and supported by 

 the branches of trees extending from the bed of 

 the stream below to the sides of the dam — forming, 

 in fact, as good supports to the general structure 

 as any engineer could have devised. . . . 



" Mr. Bartlett and I closely examined the mark- 

 ings of the beavers' chisel-like teeth on the trees 

 which they had cut down. These trees were oak, 

 larch, pine, birch, and willow. The young ones, 

 judging from the markings of their teeth, are not such 

 good workmen as their parents, and one would 



