22 
FOREST 
AND STREAM 
ROMANCE OF THE BEAVER. 
I N the “Romance of the Beaver,” by A. Rad- 
Clyffe Dugmore (J. B. Lippincott, publish¬ 
ers, price $2.50 net) we have a new book by 
a respected and authoritative author, which de¬ 
serves reading as much from the standpoint of 
economics and conservation as for the entertain¬ 
ing features it affords. The beaver is an animal 
so common that everybody thinks he knows all 
about him, but as a matter of fact, less is known 
of this interesting little mammal by those who 
come in contact with him in his home environ¬ 
ment or by students of natural history 
than almost any other of our diversi¬ 
fied North American fauna. 
Mr. Dugmore has treated his subject 
in a manner that leaves no room for 
criticism. On the other hand there is 
much in his book to be praised, and much 
that will repay reading. The author has 
a worid-wide reputation as a wild life 
photographer, and in the present volume 
he has brought to bear all his ingenuity 
and familiarity with that are toward 
giving us pictures of the beaver in his 
home surrounding. Not only that, he 
writes with a grace and style that char¬ 
acterize all his contributions to our lit¬ 
erature. Mr. Dugmore spent many 
weeks studying the beaver in northern 
Canada, and naturally his best photo¬ 
graphs were obtained under right con¬ 
ditions. He gives us flash lights of the 
beaver cutting trees at night, swimming 
in the water and—'probably something 
that never before has been accomplished 
—he shows a beaver in the act of ma¬ 
king the splash with the tail that pre¬ 
cedes his dive, and which is supposed to 
be to warn others of the beaver colony 
of danger. How the beaver made this 
splash, which many of our outdoor 
readers have heard in the wilderness, 
has been a matter of dispute. Mr. Dugmore’s 
photographs indicate that the smash of the tail 
on the surface ofl the water is made while the 
animal’s head is above water; something that 
will surprise not a few woods life observers, for 
it has been held heretofore that the beaver made 
the smashing blow of his tail after he 'had started 
for the bottom, and while his body is submerged 
with the exception of the tail. 
Captain Cartwright, that strange character who 
about the time the American colonies were bat¬ 
tling for their independence, settled in Labrador, 
and established himself as an early lord of the 
manor, and whose diary was a few years ago 
carefully edited by Professor Townsend, wrote 
one of the best histories of the beaver ever 
printed until Mr. Dugmore’s book appeared. It 
is rather strange that Mr. Dugmore has not re¬ 
ferred to this work:, for he is extremely liberal 
in giving credit to every source of authority to 
which he had access. At any rate Cartwright, 
although hs diary is now 131 years old and over, 
did much to clear up the popular superstitions 
and misconceptions prevailing with reference to 
an animal which in addition to yielding millions 
of dollars of profit to the world has another 
value to this generation. Even so great a nat¬ 
uralist as Buffon wrote that the beaver had a 
scaly tail because he ate fish. Cartwright sagely 
observed that if a fish diet produced such re¬ 
sults, Buffon himself should have had a similar 
appendage, since he probably had eaten more 
fish in a year than all the beavers in the world 
had consumed' in one hundred years. And the 
misconceptions of Buffon and his successors in 
the field of natural history have extended over 
all the years that have intervened. 
It is well that a man like Dugmore should have 
come to the front with such an honest and pains¬ 
taking effort to tell us what the beaver is and 
how he lives. Dugmore has added another chap¬ 
ter showing how shortsighted civilization has 
and what is worse, the white men to whom they 
sell their furs, pay little attention to these laws. 
Readers of Forest and Stream may have noted 
in recent numbers that contributors, writing of 
the new country being opened by railway in the 
northern portions of Quebec and other provinces, 
have mentioned that beaver are becoming scarce, 
because persecuted at all seasons of the year, and 
beyond all reason. When these sections were in 
the firm control of the Hudson’s Bay Company 
the taking of beaver was strictly regulated, and 
the supply maintained. As the grip of the great 
fur corporation was broken, the Indians followed 
How the Beaver Works. (Watch Contrasts Size.) 
Photo by A. Radclyffe Dugmore (Copyrighted) 
been in almost exterminating or permitting the 
extermination of the beaver, which as a con¬ 
servationist has performed a work, the inter¬ 
ruption of which we see to-day in the terrific 
floods of water bursts that are costing America 
immense sums of money. Congress thinks noth¬ 
ing of appropriating millions of dollars in engi¬ 
neering projects to.hold back the water at head 
sources, in order to prevent floods. It will cost 
America hundreds of millions before this is ac¬ 
complished, for the floods are becoming worse 
year by year as deforestration proceeds. 
If the beaver had been allowed to exist in 
numbers, as he did before civilization touched 
him, the dams he built across streams would 
have done much to hold back the terrible onrush 
of waters that now devastate portions of our 
fairest and most fertile valleys. It has been ar¬ 
gued learnedly that cutting down the forests pre¬ 
vents the holding back of water, but is it not 
true that there are two facts to be considered 
here? As the forests are cut down, and the land 
settled, the beaver is destroyed and his conserva¬ 
tion work is stopped. The point is well worth 
thinking about. 
And the beaver is being destroyed more rap¬ 
idly than we think. Some of the Canadian prov¬ 
inces have protected the little animal for periods 
running from two to five years, but the Indians, 
no set rule in this particular, and as their 
grounds were invaded by outside trappers, the 
whole plan of procedure finally degenerated into 
a murderous onslaught on one of the most valu- 
ble animals in North America, and with disas¬ 
trous results. It is time that this was stopped. 
Mr. Dugmore even complains bitterly that in 
the great Algonquin Park, set aside by Canada 
as a playground for the continent, the govern¬ 
ment is so anxious to derive a revenue from the 
park, that its rangers officially are permitted to 
take beaver in quantities that are depleting the 
supply. If this is true, it is little less than a crime. 
The early settler and pioneer on this continent 
found that in innumerable instances the beaver 
had done much to make things easy for the be¬ 
ginning of farming operations, the beaver dam 
old and new, having brought about the clearing 
of lands through the destruction of timber and 
by the drowning process, and also by building up 
low swampy places into a condition where a little 
draining or no draining at all created a ready¬ 
made farm. The North American continent 
owes more to the beaver than to any other ani¬ 
mal. It was in quest of his valuable pelt that 
explorations were pushed outward into the wil¬ 
derness. The beaver it was that determined the 
political destiny of the future. Well may he be 
the emblem of our neighbors to the north. 
/•. 
