BEAVERS. 103 
female—would on such occasions proceed to a beaver-colony, and, after cutting a 
series of holes in the ice around each lodge, in which nets were placed, the lodges 
themselves were dug open. Some of the animals would be killed in their sleeping- 
places, others were caught in the nets, while others were hunted by the dogs 
accompanying the party to their burrows, where they were dug out. Some 
individuals were, however, always allowed to escape, in order to re-populate the 
colony. With the increasing demand for skins as the country was opened up by 
Europeans, the Indians resorted to more effectual modes of capture, the rivers and 
ponds being staked across at the commencement of a raid, in a manner which 
prevented the escape of a single member of the colony. Subsequently steel traps 
were introduced, but, from the nature of the beaver’s food, it was long before an 
attractive bait could be discovered. At length it was found that castoreum itself 
was a deadly lure, and from that date the traps have always been baited with some 
preparation of that drug. So attractive is castoreum to the animals by which it is 
produced, that a beaver which swam away with a trap attached to one leg has 
been known to be caught in another trap on the following day; and there is an 
instance recorded where one of these animals, after having gnawed off a leg in 
order to escape, again suffered itself to be ensnared. 
The great natural enemy of the beaver is the glutton, or wolverene, whose 
common Canadian name of careajou is a corruption of the Indian word 
quickwahuy, said to mean “beaver-eater.” The glutton either digs the beavers 
out of their lodges, or catches them by lying in wait in the woods. 
The Hudson’s Bay Company have wisely assigned certain islands in their 
territory as beaver-preserves, where a certain number of the animals are killed 
every third year only. It has been proposed to establish “beaver-ranches” in 
America, but, as Mr. Martin points out, the attempts hitherto made to domesticate 
these animals do not hold out much encouragement as to the success of the project. 
It is true that beavers live and become fairly tame in menageries (where, from 
their nocturnal habits, they are but rarely seen), but they rapidly deteriorate, losing 
the brilliant gloss of their coats, and acquiring dull, listless habits. 
The European beaver makes its first appearance in the “forest- 
bed” of the Norfolk coast, belonging to the lower part of the Pleistocene 
period. Here it was accompanied by the giant extinct beaver (Vrogontheriwm), 
distinguished not only by its superior size, but by differences in the structure of 
the skull and teeth. Its range extended to Siberia. Beavers belonging to the 
living genus occur in the Pliocene strata of Europe and the Miocene of North 
Extinct Beavers. 
America. The earliest European beaver is the Chalicomys, which is found in the 
Miocene beds of the Continent, and was of considerably smaller size than the living 
forms, while it differed from all living Rodents in having a perforation at the 
lower end of the upper arm-bone or humerus. 
