1968 The Zoologist — January, 1870. 



novices in the back woods often mistake them for Indian " sign." 

 Large trees are universally felled so as to fall with the head to land, 

 because, if required for floating down, the branches would impede it 

 being floated off, while the difficulty of dragging it down is not so great, 

 over and above the fact of the impeding branches being easily gnawed 

 off. Much ingenuity is displayed to effect the fall of the tree in the 

 proper position. I have often, in my walks and sails along the solitary 

 rivers of the western wilds, seen three or four beavers piloting a large tree 

 down stream, and noticed that when they were approaching its desti- 

 nation they shoved it into the eddies inshore. They always cut down 

 the trees above their lodges, never on anv' occasion below. In winter 

 they have a store of food secured at some convenient distance from 

 their abodes. When they require any they start off to get it- They 

 do not eat there, but bring it to their house, and there make their 

 meal. Of the almost human intelligence of the "thinking beaver" 

 the stories are innumerable ; but many of them are much exaggerated, 

 or even fabulous (such as Buffon's account). The following is 

 tolerably well authenticated, my informants vouching for the accuracy 

 of it. In a creek about four miles above the mouih of Quesnelle 

 Kiver, in British Columbia, some miners broke down a dam, in the 

 course of the operation for making a ditch, at the same time erecting 

 a wheel to force up the water. Beavers abounded on this stream, 

 and found themselves much inconvenienced by these proceedings. 

 Accordingly, it is said that, in order to stop the wheel, the beavers 

 placed a stick between the flappers in such a way as to stop the 

 revolutions of the wheel. This was so continually repeated night 

 after night, and was so artfully performed, as to preclude the pos- 

 sibility of its being accidental. 



In " Notes on the Habits of the Beaver," presented to the Royal 

 Physical Society by Mr. James K'Kenzie*, of the Hudson Bay 

 Company's Service, and to all appearance most careful and trust- 

 worthy, details are given differing somewhat from those related by 

 Messrs. Green (in the foregoing paper) and Tod. 



When I lived among the Opicheshaht Indians, at the head of the 

 Alberni Canal, V. I., I heard much about Attoh, the beaver, but 

 remarkably little to the credit of its sagacity. They look upon it as 

 rather a common-place animal, requiring no particular skill to trap. 

 They used to tell us all sorts of stories about it, but I think they all 



* Proceedings of the Koyal Physical Society, Session 1861-62, and Edin. New 

 Phil. Journal, vol. xv. pp. 299—302. 



