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 
