EARLY NOTTCKS OF THE BEAVER. 365 



it looks like a little knowl. The next work is to make burrows of retreat the 

 first year seldom more than one or two can be made, and sometimes none. These 

 are carried on from a few inches below the surface of the water, direct from it, 

 gradually rising, of about a foot in height by twenty inches in breadth, so that a 

 beaver can turn in them ; their length depends on the easiness of digging the 

 ground, the general length is about ten feet, but in good earth they often are of 

 twenty feet or more. The second and third year the number of burrows are aug- 

 mented to five or six, and where the beaver have been a long time the ponds and 

 small lakes have numerous burrows. 



" The Indians think the male and female are faithful to each other. They bring up 

 their young for the first year with care and protection, until the next spring, 

 when the female is about to litter she drives them all away, and some of them 

 before they can be made to stay away receive severe cuts on the back from the 

 teeth of the old ones. The young beavers are very playful and whimper like 

 children. The beaver is supposed to attain to the age of fifteen years, some think 

 twenty years. The beaver hunter is often at a loss what to do, and sometimes 

 passes a whole day without coming to a determination. His shortest and surest 

 way is to stake up the doorway of the house, the stakes he carries with him ready 

 for the purpose ; but the beavers are so watchful that his approach is heard, and 

 they retire to their burrows. Some prefer first finding the burrows and closing 

 them up with stakes, and cutting off retreat from the house. Whichever method 

 he takes difficulties and hard labour attend him. To determine the place of the 

 beavers, as the whole family of seven or nine are seldom all found in the house, 

 the Indian is greatly assisted by a peculiar species of small dog, of a light make, 

 about three feet in height, muzzle sharp and brown, full black eyes, with a round 

 brown spot above each eye, the body blacky the belly of a fawn color ; its scent 

 very keen and almost unerring. This dog points out by smelling and scratching 

 the weakest part of the beaver house, the part where they lie, and the same in 

 the burrows, which are then doubly staked. The Indian with his axe and ice chisel 

 makes a hole over the place shown by the dog. The beaver having changed its place, 

 to find to which end of the burrow it is gone a crooked stick is employed until it 

 touches the beaver, another hole is made and the beaver is killed with the ic e 

 chisel, which has a heavy handle of about seven feet in length. When the dog 

 smells and scratches at two or three places on the beaver house it is a mark that 

 there are several in it; the doorway being doubly staked, the Indian proceeds to 

 make a hole near the centre of it to give full range to his ice chisel, and not one 

 escapes ; but all with hard labor. Such was the manner of killing the beaver imtil 

 the introduction of steel traps, which, baited with Castoreum, soon brought on the 

 almost total destruction of these numerous and sagacious animals." 



Such were the reflections of an acute and sagacious ohserver upwards 

 of sixty years since, when the speedy extermination of the beaver 

 seemed inevitable. Before, however, the substitution of silk for the 

 beaver wool had procured for the ingenious rodent, some respite from 

 anihilation, other materials were brought into use for the same pur- 



VOL. IV. AA 



