RESULTS OF BEAVERS' WORK 153 



the skins they bring to the storehouse of these 

 gentlemen." " Now if it will be so arranged that 

 in the course of time each family of our Montaig- 

 nais, if they become located, will take its own 

 territory for hunting, without following in the 

 tracks of its neighbours : besides we will counsel 

 them not to kill any but the males " (this is 

 amusing advice as the two sexes cannot be told 

 apart by their appearance) " and of those only such 

 as are large. If they act upon this advice they will 

 have meat and skins in the greatest abundance." 

 In another volume of the same work we find that 

 Father Le Jeune (1636) offers a suggestion in the 

 following words : " In time, parks can be made in 

 which to keep Beaver ; these would be treasure- 

 houses, besides furnishing us with meat at all 

 times." 



It is true that to-day the prospect for their 

 welfare is better than it was some years ago 

 when their extermination seemed to be imminent. 

 Fourteen years ago I spent weeks travelling by 

 canoe through what was formerly one of the best 

 beaver countries in Canada, in search of material 

 for some drawings on beaver and their work, and 

 though I had with me an experienced Indian, I 

 only found one colony, a small one, in a pond 

 many miles north-west of Lake Temiscaming. All 

 other ponds found on this trip were deserted, 

 nothing but the decaying lodges and dams marked 

 the places where the beavers had been. Trappers 



