368 ME. E. BEOWN ON THE BEAVEB. 



water, gives a " purchase," so as to spring up the bank on the 

 very place where the trap is concealed. His food is principally 

 willows. The bark is preferred, though the wood is eaten when 

 nothing else can be got. It will gnaw through thick trees, appa- 

 rently for the top foliage ; for immediately the tree falls the 

 beavers spring on the branches of it. A stump showing 

 beaver-gnawing is not unlike Indian chopping (small irregular 

 chops) ; and novices in the back woods often mistake them for 

 Indian "sign." Large trees are universally felled so as to fall 

 with tho head to land, because, if required for floating down, the 

 branches would impede it being floated oiF, while the difiiculty of 

 dragging it down is not so groat, over and above the fact of tho 

 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 

 destination they shoved it into the eddies inshore. They always 

 cut down the trees above their lodges, never on any occasion 

 below. In winter they have a store of food secured at some con- 

 venient 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 malce their meal. Of the almost human intelli- 

 gence 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 mouth of Quesnelle Biver, in British Co- 

 lumbia, 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 re- 

 peated night after night, and was so artfully performed, as to 

 preclude the possibility of its being accidental. 



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

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



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

 Phil. Journal, vb\. xv. pp. 299-302. 



