112 NORTHERN ZOOLOGY. 
it necessary to stake the river across, to prevent them from passing ; after which 
they endeavour to find out all their holes or places of retreat in the banks. This 
requires much practice and experience to accomplish, and is performed in the 
following manner. Every man being furnished with an ice-chisel, lashes it to the 
end of a small staff, about four or five feet long ; he then walks along the edge 
of the banks, and keeps knocking his chisel against the ice. ‘Those who are 
acquainted with that kind of work, well know by the sound of the ice when they 
are opposite to any of the beavers’ holes or vaults. As soon as they suspect any, 
they cut a hole through the ice big enough to admit an old beaver, and in this 
manner proceed till they have found out all their places of retreat, or at least as 
many of them as possible. While the principal men are thus employed, some of 
the understrappers, and the women, are busy in breaking open the house, which 
at times is no easy task, for I have frequently known these houses to be five or six 
feet thick ; and one, in particular, was more than eight feet thick in the crown. 
When the beavers find that their habitations are invaded, they fly to their holes 
in the banks for shelter ; and on being perceived by the Indians, which is easily 
done by attending to the motion of the water, they block up the entrance with 
stakes of wood, and then haul the beaver out of its hole, either by hand if they 
can reach it, or with a large hook made for that purpose, which is fastened to the 
end of along stick. In this kind of hunting, every man has the sole right to all 
the beaver caught by him in the holes or vaults; and as this is a constant rule, 
each person takes care to mark such as he discovers by sticking up a branch of a 
tree by which he may know them. All that are caught in the house are the 
property of the person who finds it. The beaver is an animal which cannot keep 
under water long at a time, so that when their houses are broke open, and all 
their places of retreat discovered, they have but one choice left, as it may be 
called, either to be taken in their house or their vaults: in general they prefer 
the latter ; for where there is one beaver caught in the house, many thousands are 
taken in the vaults in the banks. Sometimes they are caught in nets, and in 
summer, very frequently, in traps. | 
“In respect to the beaver dunging in their houses, as some persons assert, it 
is quite wrong, as they always plunge into water to do it. I am the better 
enabled to make this assertion, from having kept several of them till they became 
so domesticated as to answer to their name, and follow those to whom they were 
accustomed, in the same manner as a dog would do; and they were as much 
pleased at being fondled as any animal I ever saw. In cold weather they were 
kept in my own sitting room, where they were the constant companions of the 
