Jan. i8, 1913 
FOREST AND STREAM 
71 
The Tenants of the Iron Barrier 
O NE of the most notable among the fur¬ 
bearing animals to be found in this coun¬ 
try where it still remains in remote parts 
and will evidently continue to perpetuate its kind, 
if given the protection of the Government is the 
beaver, an animal that has amounted tO' a very 
great deal indeed in the history of this country 
which has been based so solidly upon the foun¬ 
dation of the fur trade. 
Dating back to the time of the early set¬ 
tlers, the beaver has constantly been before the 
people and an object of great interest both in a 
sentimental and a practical manner. Those who 
have studied its habits have found much in¬ 
deed upon which to revel, and those who have 
engaged in the capture of it for its fur have 
found that it is not only a shrewd and cunning 
animal, though by no degree of such as is pos¬ 
sessed by the mink or the otter, although of 
such an order as to make the taking of it more 
or less difficult. The fur is valuable and de¬ 
sirable as a money maker. 
By ROBERT PAGE LINCOLN 
In the present day, owing to protective 
measures adopted for his preservation, the beaver 
is able to recuperate its lost numbers, and we 
find in some parts of the United States a gradual 
increasing that would point to a survival after 
all is said and done. 
It is, of course, an almost settled opinion that 
animals are actuated entirely by their instinct, as 
against the idea held by some that they are pos¬ 
sessed of human intelligence. The heightened 
degree of instinct claimed for some animals has 
been very misleading indeed in the forcing of un¬ 
thoughtful persons to the belief that this keen¬ 
ness holds the essence of reasoning. 
The beaver on its part is a wonderfully in¬ 
genious animal. We witness in its progression 
from the brute stage to that of the present day 
a complete survival wherein other animals, 
forced to the last barrier of the wilderness have 
abandoned their knowledge of material uses, 
falling back almost entirely upon their powers 
of cunning which have become sharpened to an 
extreme. It is natural that when human or 
brute progress along one essential line, restrict¬ 
ing their processes of thought or instinct to 
one individual factor, they will be proficient in 
that to a notable degree, which cannot be 
said of their other faculties of deduction and 
observation as directed toward material things, 
unless these are likewise developed. The beaver 
gives us an example of an individual of the 
brute family which has retained its given amount 
of talent and art. 
While the beaver is not to be considered in 
the school of cunning as suggested by the wolf 
or mink or such, they in their limit cannot sur¬ 
pass the beaver in its high development of ma¬ 
terial ingenuity. In evading man, these other 
animals have found it necessary to cultivate their 
shrewdness. The beaver has cared little for 
these, and as a consequence has not forgotten 
his native talent. The beaver in captivity is a 
gentle and harmless creature, seemingly dull and 
sorrowful and unpossessed of passion, endeavor- 
ONE OF THE TENANTS. 
