RESULTS OF BEAVERS' WORK 141 



making a fight against the dastardly destruction of 

 these innocents for purposes of personal adornments 

 and other equally useless objects. But the beaver 

 is almost without any champion. He even has 

 enemies who demand that he shall be killed 

 for the harm he does to their particular interests. 

 They do not stop to consider how they benefit 

 by the results of the little animals' work which 

 far more than counter-balances any slight harm 

 they do. 



In this chapter I shall endeavour to show what 

 the beavers' work means. The question of the 

 value of the animals themselves as fur bearers, and 

 the results to the country from their pursuit, will 

 come in a later chapter. We have seen that 

 through making dams the beaver floods tracts of 

 land which vary in size from less than an acre up to 

 hundreds of acres, perhaps we might even say 

 thousands. So long as these ponds or lakes are 

 inhabited by the animals the dams are kept in 

 repair, but gradually, as the size of the colony 

 increases, the supply of food trees becomes more 

 and more remote and the place eventually is un- 

 suited to their needs, so the beaver move away and 

 seek new pastures. In the natural course of events 

 the dam, no longer kept in repair, soon begins to 

 break down. Willows and alders take root and 

 open up seams through which the water escapes. 

 Running water soon enlarges any holes in earth 

 works, and so within a short time the dams no 



