THE BEAVER. 
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settled this question, it goes to the opposite side of the tree, 
and with two or three powerful bites cuts away the wood, so 
that the tree becomes overbalanced and falls to the ground. 
This point having been reached, the animal proceeds to cut 
up the fallen trunk into lengths, usually a yard or so in length, 
employing a similar method of severing the wood. In conse- 
quence of this mode of gnawing the timber, both ends of the 
logs are rounded and rather pointed. In the Zoological Gardens 
maybe seen many excellent examples of timber which has been 
cut by the Beaver. The logs and stumps which project a foot 
or so from the ground are so neatly pointed that very few visitors 
notice them, thinking them to be cut by the hand of man. 
The next part of the task is, to make these logs into a dam. 
Now,- whereas some persons have endeavoured to make the 
Beaver a more ingenious animal than it really is, and have 
accredited it with powers which only belong to mankind, others 
have gone to the other extreme, and have denied the existence 
of a regularly built dam, saying that it is entirely accidental, 
and caused by the logs that are washed down by the stream, 
after the Beavers have nibbled off all the bark. 
That this position is untenable is evident from the acknow- 
ledged fact that the dam is by no means placed at random in 
the stream, just where a few logs may have happened to lodge, 
but is set exactly where it is wanted, and is made so as to suit 
the force of the current. In those places where the stream 
runs slowly, the dam is carried straight across the river, but in 
those where the water has much power, the barrier is made in 
a convex shape, so as to resist the force of the rushing water. 
The power of the stream can, therefore, always be inferred from 
the shape of the dam which the Beavers have built across it. 
Some of these dams are of very great size, measuring two or 
three hundred yards in length, and ten or twelve feet in thick- 
ness, and their form exactly corresponds with the force of the 
stream, being straight in some parts, and more or less convex 
in others. 
The dam is formed, not by forcing the ends of the logs into 
the bed of the river, but by laying them horizontally, and cover- 
