NOVEMBER 245 



the construction of its dwelling. In these qualities the 

 European species is fully equal to the American. To 

 build an effective dam a man must be a bit of an 

 engineer, using his head quite as much as his hands. 

 One of Mr. Dugmore's photographs shows a beaver 

 dam 365 feet long and, for the greater part of its length, 

 seven feet high. Felling forest trees is a heavy job ; 

 risky too, for any but skilled woodmen. Another 

 photograph shows a birch tree fifteen feet in circum- 

 ference felled by the beaver's chisel-like teeth. The 

 late Lord Bute established a colony of beavers in a 

 wood through which runs a stream in the island of Bute. 

 Though I have waited long and vigilantly in view of 

 the dam they had constructed, I never had the luck to 

 catch sight of one of its architects, but I saw plenty 

 of stumps whence they had cut the trunks for their 

 building. 



Within the dam, says Mr. Dugmore, the lodges of 

 the community are built, and whereas the entrance 

 to each lodge is under water, it follows that each 

 member of a family in returning home brings in a 

 lot of wet with him. That has been provided for. The 

 wet runs through the floor of the apartment, on one 

 side of which the bed of grass or wood-shavings is 

 raised on a kind of dais, whereon, we may presume, 

 the careful housewife allows none of the party to 

 recline in a wet jacket. 



After all, the ways of these beasts are so weird as to 

 justify the title Mr. Dugmore has given his book. The 

 most matter-of-fact account of them savours of romance. 

 Although this author indulges not in fine writing, his 



