6 BULLETIN 10' 



WALKING. 



On land the beavers walk with a slow, heavy, shuffling gait, the 

 tail dragging on the ground or being held slightly above and sway- 

 ing from side to side. At times one will gallop along fast enough 

 to keep up with a person at a slow walk, but the young soon get 

 tired and out of breath. If frightened, they will make a rush for 

 cover or for the water, but at their best speed even an adult can 

 be easily outrun by a person. They seem to realize their limitations 

 on land, and rarely are their cuttings or any signs of them seen 

 more than a few rods from the water. Trees have been found cut 

 as far back as 10 or 12 rods from the shore, but track, trail, or trace 

 of beavers is rarely if ever found farther from water. 



TREE CUTTING. 



In cutting trees each beaver works independently, although several 

 sometimes have worked on the same tree. A small tree is generally 

 cut through from one side, but a larger tree is usually cut on two 

 sides or all around. The chips are cut above and below and split out 

 much as by a woodman's ax, and a large pile usually surrounds the 

 base of a recently cut stump. The tree falls the way it happens to 

 lean, but along the shore most trees lean toward the water. The bark 

 is generally eaten from the chips as they are cut out of trees, poles, 

 or branches before the chips are dropped on the ground. One old 

 beaver will fell a poplar tree 3 or 4 inches in diameter, cut it into 

 sections of 4 to 8 feet each, and drag it to the water in one night. A 

 larger tree will often withstand the attacks of several nights and 

 when down will provide work for the whole family or colony for a 

 week or more in cutting, trimming, and carrying the sections of 

 branches and upper trunk to the water. Trunks over 5 inches in 

 diameter are rarely cut up or moved from where they fall, unless 

 lying in the water or very near by. Trees a foot in diameter are 

 often cut down, and occasionally trees as large as 1J or 2 feet in diam- 

 eter. The largest I have even seen cut was a balsam poplar in Mon- 

 tana, 46 inches across the stump. 1 



Tree cutting for food. — Poplars (PL II, Fig. 2) and cottonwoods, 

 all species of the genus Pojmlus, are the favorite food of beavers, and 

 few other trees are cut where these are to be had. Willows, birches 

 (PL III, Fig. 1), pin cherry, alders, and the bush maples 2 come next. 

 Many small bushes, hazel, witchhopple, cornel, service berry, and rasp- 

 berry are cut for food, and under stress of necessity such hardwoods 

 as birch, maple, ash, cherry, and even oak are felled both for food and 



1 Photograph published in Wild Animals of Glacier National Park, National Park 

 Service, U. S. Dept Interior, p. G6, 191S. 

 3 Acer pennsyl ■anicum and A. spicatum. 



