g6 Ways of Wood Folk. 



of which is a Httle strong smelling musk. When 

 you find that sign, in a circle of carefully trimmed 

 grass under the alders, you know that there is a 

 young beaver on that stream looking for a wife. 

 And when the young beaver finds his pie opened 

 and closed again, he knows that there is a mate there 

 somewhere waiting for him. But the poor bank 

 beaver never finds his mate, and the next winter 

 must go back to his solitary den. He is much more 

 easily caught than other beavers, and the trappers 

 say it is because he is lonely and tired of life. 



The second theory is that generally held by Indians. 

 They say the bank beaver is lazy and refuses to work 

 with the others ; so they drive him out. When 

 beavers are busy they are very busy, and tolerate no 

 loafing. Perhaps he even tries to persuade them 

 that all their work is unnecessary, and so shares 

 the fate of reformers in general. 



While examining the den of a bank beaver last 

 summer another theory suggested itself. Is not this 

 one of the rare animals in which all the instincts of 

 his kind are lacking } He does not build because 

 he has no impulse to build ; he does not know how. 

 So he represents what the beaver was, thousands of 

 years ago, before he learned how to construct his 

 dam and house, reappearing now by some strange 

 freak of heredity, and finding himself wofuUy out of 



