11 
The Beaver. 
As architect he plans with skill, 
As engineer he’s most expert, 
With masonry he checks the rill, 
And builds a dam with sticks and dirt; 
Near by his house with many doors 
His prudence a retreat secures. 
beaver is a master mechanic, who cuts 
lown trees and builds dams; a scientific mason, 
, who puts them together, and daubs them 
with consummate skill; a civil engineer, who 
instructs a dam that will stand a flood— 
something which the ingenuity of man cannot 
accomplish with the same material. He never 
nakes a mistake in a mathematical cal- 
:ulation, which human architects often do. 
The water may run over the beaver’s dam in 
:orrents, but it never gives way. When it is 
[broken, he is as well aware of it as the person 
* who did it; and when he comes out to look at 
lis loss, he spends no time repining over the 
. nisfortune. He does not even take time to 
■alculate the amount of damage done, but goes 
,j:o work to repair it, for when he starts to visit 
'he scene of disaster, he takes pieces of wood 
: with him to begin repairs and pushes it before 
; lim to the break, and the trap placed in the 
oreak is sprung by the “chunk,” so he uses them 
Doth in rebuilding the dam. When he places 
my of his working material in position, he gives 
t a slap with his tail to settle it firmly; a very 
j substantial blow, as his tail is wide and heavy 
md covered with horny scales, 
f When a beaver is made aware of the approach 
■ if an enemy by scent or otherwise, he slaps 
j iis tail on the water, which not only gives him 
j he necessary impetus for diving, but as the 
| loise can be heard at a considerable distance, is 
| dso a signal of warning to all the beavers in 
| hat neighborhood, who instantly seek safety in 
I heir hiding places. 
Although the beaver has a fish pond near his 
' Iwelling, he is no fish eater, but lives upon bark, 
oots and herbs. It was from the beaver that 
! he learned savant, Rev. Edward Fontaine, 
j laught the idea of the jetty system; but the 
! cholar fared no better than the grandfather of 
| he science, the genus Castor ; for Capt. Eads 
Hobbled up not only the emoluments, but the 
j ionors of the discovery. The beaver uses the 
I ame material in constructing his dam that is 
J lsed to make the jetties. He weaves into it 
| billows and birch that readily take root and 
l., r row in water, not only holding the mud, but 
lie accumulated washings of the stream. He 
uts down trees the size of a man’s body and 
fays away his winter stores beneath the water, 
! eeping them down with stones and mud, for 
'is principal food is bark. He is an expert 
j /aterman, but an awkward landsman. He does 
ot use his tail as a trowel to plaster the walls 
f his house, according to the generally con- 
eived idea, but as a rudder to guide him in 
[he water. 
With their chisel-like teeth the beavers fell 
/rees with great rapidity. They lay their timber 
i rosswise and nearly horizontal, only leaving 
a cavity in the middle; and if any branches pro¬ 
ject inward, they cut them off and throw them 
in the cavity with the rest, to prevent the mud 
from falling in, and then they fill it with stones 
and gravel, if this is to be had, carrying it 
through the water under their throats by the 
aid of their fore paws, and use their hands in 
daubing mud, while they sustain themselves on 
their tails. 
The dams vary in shape, according to the 
stream; if the current is gentle, it is carried out 
straight, if it is rapid, the dam is bowed, 
presenting a convexity to the current. Then 
they build their houses on the bank, and cover 
them over with mud; and willows grow so 
thick upon them as to make the mounds almost 
impenetrable to wild beasts. They are not 
easily caught in their houses, as they always 
have passages of exit under water. 
In these swamps beavers often build houses 
in the roots of large hollow trees; a canal leads 
to the houses, often some distance from their 
dam. When too much disturbed by civilization, 
they change their habits, by ceasing to build 
dams, and make houses under ground in bluffs 
on streams where they are not easily dis¬ 
covered, as they work only at night. 
In cold climates they remain in their houses 
while the rivers are frozen over, but in the 
South they seldom remain housed very long. 
In times of overflow, when driven from their 
retreats, they are found lying about on old 
logs and drift piles. As they are in the habit 
of sleeping during daylight, they are easily ap¬ 
proached by a hunter in a dugout. 
The beaver has been hunted more for its 
valuable fur than for its flesh. It reaches ma¬ 
turity when three years old. It is about forty 
inches long without the tail, which is from ten 
inches to a foot long. The male beaver 
possesses glandular sacs containing a substance 
called castor (castoreum). Trappers prepare a 
bait of castor mixed with the bark-like sub¬ 
stance, which entices the beaver to their traps. 
Sometimes they add to it the fresh bark of the 
spice bush, or the oil of rhodium, sassafras or 
cinnamon to change the odor. The beaver 
often refuses to be caught by any bait, how¬ 
ever scientifically prepared, and carelessly walks 
into a trap baited with a mellow apple hung 
over the trap concealed under water. 
The musk or castor of the male beaver is 
generally used for bait; but the late Dr. J. S. 
Heard, of West Point, Miss., informed me of 
a successful experiment he had made, by using 
as bait the musk of the female beaver, which 
has a peculiar odor. The beaver, the musk 
deer of China, and the civet cat, are the only 
musk-bearing animals whose secretions are used 
in commerce as medicine or perfume. 
The feet of the beaver are five-toed; those on 
the hind feet are united by a broad palmated 
expansion armed with strong claws. The sec¬ 
ond toe of the hind feet consists of two por¬ 
tions which give the animal an awkward gait 
on land, while it greatly facilitates its activity 
in water. 
A correspondent of one of our journals re¬ 
cently stated, that during an overflow, the 
beavers were making for the highlands. He 
might as well have said, that the fish were mak¬ 
ing for the highlands, for water is the beaver’s 
element, and an overflow is his especial delight. 
If nature does not gratify him by submerg¬ 
ing the lowlands, he dams up the streams 
to bring about an artificial overflow. A 
beaver likes to approach his house through 
long galleries, and if necessary escape by a 
window. A floating hollow tree best repre¬ 
sents the underground gallery that extends 
from the sides of streams and lakes. A hole 
is cut to go up into the house, often forty feet 
from the end of the hollow, and another one in 
the bottom for speedy escape; and this is 
always the case, even if both ends of the 
hollow tree are open. 
February and March, the months most sub¬ 
ject to overflow, are the months the beaver 
breed in. They usually produce three at a 
litter, and when young, are very small. They 
take to the water when alarmed, and find 
breathing space in the hollow logs and around 
the overlapping sticks and rubbish that com¬ 
pose the house, bringing their noses to the 
surface with scarcely as much disturbance on 
the water as an air bubble. Families of 
beaver build houses during overflows on float¬ 
ing hollow logs, and cut holes through the 
hollow to go up into the house that rises and 
falls with the water until stranded like Noah’s 
ark, when they desert it. During an overflow, 
as far as I have been able to discover, none 
but breeding females build houses. The rest 
of the community are content with a tem¬ 
porary couch on a log, a little flattened, and 
strewn with shreds of bark and chips. A 
young beaver carried on shore has a motion 
very much like the slow gait of the rabbit, but 
travels faster than one would suppose from 
the shape of its limbs. When they are watch¬ 
ing, they stand erect, with their tails braced 
like a kangaroo, to keep their balance. The 
exceeding caution of a turkey hunter is neces¬ 
sary to circumvent a beaver, who, if it cannot 
see as well as the turkey, has the advantage 
of scent in its favor, which the turkey has not. 
Tn dry seasons and low water, should their 
holes become exposed -they close them up with 
sticks and plaster, and then make another pas¬ 
sageway below the one that is closed, and con¬ 
tinue to do this until a canal has to be dug 
from the bottom of the stream to carry water 
to their holes; in a few feet each canal and 
hole thus made will connect with the original 
passageway from below, and there are always 
two and oftener three ways of ingress and 
egress. 
When the beaver leaves his tree or house, if 
there is no noise and he does not smell you, 
he will return in ten minutes. In low water 
when you find a beaver’s house, if you can 
procure a small dog with courage enough to 
go in a hole and bark, it will stampede the 
household. The wild panic created by the 
