of habitat—hence the notion of bank 
and lodge beavers was disrupted for- 
ever, as far as we were concerned. 
ANS so-called lodge beaver has, in 
addition to his mound-shaped re- 
treat, burrows dug into the bank at 
various points, and in case he is driven 
from his more commodious home, he 
will take to one of these burrows. 
Sometimes a beaver, through the loss 
of its mate, will become an exile, wan- 
dering here and there and living in 
any excuse of a home. 
The veriest sort of an amateur trap- 
per could locate the haunts of the bea- 
ver. The animal feeds largely on the 
barks of willows, poplars, cottonwoods, 
birch and alders and wherever he cuts 
down such “timber” he leaves a stub 
which looks as though someone had 
whittled it off with a dull knife—in 
small rounding chips. And there are 
many worn trails where the animals 
drag their stuff into the water and 
away to the food cache; no man could 
stumble across one of these trails with- 
out noticing it. Trees of a sizeable di- 
ameter are often cut through at the 
base and, instead of falling to the 
ground, lean against one which hasn’t 
been touched and a great tangle re- 
sults. If there is not too much work 
involved, the beaver will make another 
cut near the base of the lodged tree 
and thus attempt to bring it to earth. 
We have measured trees around 
twenty inches in diameter that beavers 
had felled. From such monsters they 
rarely take more than the topmost 
branches and less than half 
of the trunk, the bigger 
portion being too heavy, 
even when cut into short 
lengths, for them to handle. 
There is a mistaken idea 
that beavers can fell trees 
in any direction they desire, 
but this is absurd, as any 
woodsman will tell you. 
The tree falls with the wind 
or on the side having the 
preponderance of limbs. 
It is readily conceded 
that beavers must have remarkable 
teeth, in order to accomplish such mar- 
velous cutting. Their cutting teeth 
are four in number, two upper and 
two lower, coming together and mak- 
ing a sort of circle. Being long and 
as sharp as a carpenter’s chisel, the 
speed with which they accomplish the 
downfall of a large tree is truly re- 
markable. 
The beaver’s feet are objects of curi- 
osity. The forefeet are comparatively 
small, the wrists slender and the fore- 
arm short and muscular. These feet 
658 

are not webbed and are shaped a whole 
lot like hands and equipped with long 
blunt nails for digging. The beaver 
not only digs after roots for eating, 
but his “hands” are mighty useful in 
the handling of such material as he 
uses in building his houses and dams. 
But if his forefeet are interesting, the 
hind ones are doubly so. The track of 
the beaver’s hind foot when seen in 
the mud reminds cne somewhat of a 
goose track, except for the extra toes, 
for his hind foot is webbed. The legs 
are usually large, powerful and flexi- 
ble, being so necessary in swimming. 
Most any wild creature can swim, but 
give it a big green log to handle in the 
water, in addition to propelling itself, 
and trouble would immediately result. 
Because the forefeet are of no use in 
swimming, the hind ones must be over- 
size. One of the toes on each hind foot 
has a queer nail, for the latter is split 
or divided in two parts. The beaver 
combs his hair with either hind foot 
and the action causes oil to flow from 
this orifice at the split nail and the 
waterproofing of his coat results. 
HE beavers coat is in two divisions, 
an outer coat composed of long 
coarse guard hairs which act as a 
protection to the inner coat of soft 
heavy plush-like fur. In the trade the 
longer guard hairs are pulled out and 
we have what is commonly termed 
“ylucked beaver.” 
The beaver’s eyesight is very poor, 
but his nose is keen. I have known the 
animal, when he couldn’t get the wind 
on me, to swim up within a few yards, 
simply because his vision was poor and 
he couldn’t make out just 
what I was. 
The size of an average 
beaver family is from five 
to nine. We have heard of 
families with twenty-four 
members, but never saw one. 
The average inexperienced 
man, when first viewing the 
-work of beavers, would 
surely make a mistake in 
figuring the number of the 
animals thereabouts. This 
is because a pair of beavers 
will make a lot of sign. You can’t tell 
a great deal by the number of tree 
stubs remaining in the forest where 
the beavers have been working. You 
can judge somewhat by the size of the 
cache, that is, the pile of brush stored 
before the lodge for winter food. Look 
around in the mud along the shores 
and see how many different sizes of 
beaver tracks are in evidence. The 
young generally stay with the parents 
for two and even three years, before 
reaching maturity and faring forth to 
seek their own mates and fortunes. Be- 
fore one litter, of from three to seven 
in number, leaves the old home, there 
is another litter. Therefore, in a large 
family you will see three different sizes 
of tracks: the parents, the first litter 
of young and the kitts. 
pet general difference in size may 
also be noted by a careful survey 
of the place where the beavers have 
been working or cutting trees. At a 
certain height on the stump you may 
note where a kitt beaver has been imi- 
tating its parents, the older young ones 
will cut down small stuff, leaving 
shorter stubs than the parents and 
smaller teeth marks; while the work 
of the old ones themselves is readily 
in evidence, everywhere. 
Another thing that fools the ignor- 
ant is this: instead of a beaver family 
on every dam there are anywhere from 
three to a dozen beaver dams for each 
group of the animals. A brief study 
of the dams is necessary to understand 
this. 
larger than the others and on it the 
lodge is built. Dams’ above it are built 
to act as auxiliary floating ponds, each 
dam backing the water up and spread- 
ing it around over considerable terri- 
tory and thus enabling the beavers to 
work a lot of additional forest fairly 
close to the water. A beaver can han- 
dle extra large logs in water, but it is 
hard work to drag the big sticks to 
the shore. He finds it easier to take 
the water to the forest rather than the 
forest to the water. He believes in the 
old adage, “there’s more ways of kill- 
ing a cat than by choking it to death 
on butter.” 
The presence of the dams below the 
main one, often in a series of three or 
four, are proof positive of the beaver’s 
instinct for engineering. Were these 
dams not there, the fall of water over 
the top of the main dam would be very 
great and the pressure against it so 
heavy as to wash it out. But the 
beaver builds a dam some distance be- 
low and backs the water up against the 
main dam which acts as a reinforce- 
ment. 
HIS plan is followed on down 
through the succession of dams, 
each being smaller until the water is 
gradually lowered back to its original 
channel where it flows away quite nat- 
urally instead of in a rushing torrent 
over one obstruction. The beaver does 
not have concrete to work with, only 
sticks and stones and mud and the fact 
that his work lasts so well is surely 
remarkable. 
We don’t often remark on the opin- 
ion advanced by another writer, for we 
all make mistakes, but something we 
saw in one of our largest and most 
One dam will be considerably | 
| ell 
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