SPORT AND TRAVEL 147 



yards in width, had, together with the overflow of the 

 water, been completely dammed and a little lake formed 

 which extended right across the valley. In this little 

 lake stood many dead and leafless cottonwood or quak- 

 ing aspen trees, which, having originally stood on dry 

 ground, had been killed by long immersion in the 

 water. The water of the lake was flush with the top 

 of the dam, over which it ran in the centre, and gradu- 

 ally found its way back to the original bed of the 

 stream. 



I was told that there were probably about twenty 

 beavers in this colony, and the amount of work 

 they had accomplished in building the dam I have 

 described was really astonishing. They had been 

 very busy the night before my visit, and had cut down 

 a number of saplings of a soft-wooded tree something 

 like poplar. The largest sapling I saw which had been 

 felled was about four inches in diameter. No doubt 

 beavers could cut down much larger trees if they 

 wished to do so, as they seem to be able to fell small 

 saplings with three or four cuts of their sharp and 

 powerful chisel-shaped teeth. 1 The beavers here 

 build no lodges on their dams, but live in holes in 

 the banks of the stream they have dammed. They 

 are now entirely nocturnal in their habits, neither 

 feeding nor working between sunrise and sunset. 



On the first of September we made a start for the 



1 At Leonardslee in Sussex, the seat of Sir Edmund Loder, Bart., the 

 acclimatised beavers have cut down several very large trees, amongst 

 them an oak-tree, eighteen inches in diameter. 



