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popular magazines, written by a man 
who is in the field for a big museum, 
surely did amuse us. He wrote that 
the beaver, in making his lodge, started 
out by leaning poles against one an- 
other (a la Indian in making a frame 
for his tepee) and then piled more 
sticks and mud against the framework. 
I don’t doubt but this fellow knew a lot 
about beavers, but he surely had never 
seen one building his house. A beaver 
and his mate rarely complete a house 
in one summer, but the idea is this: a 
big mound of sticks, stones and mud 
is raised from the bottom of the pond 
and hollowed out inside to suit their 
requirements. There are several en- 
trances, all under water, which meet to 
form another channel, and the latter, 
Tenging upward, gains a point above 
water level and there the living-room 
is hollowed out, from three to six feet 
‘in diameter and containing dry grass 
for them to bed on. This grass does 
not stay dry very long and will not 
last till spring; the animals come from 
the water and the living-room is al- 
Ways damp. There is, however, no sign 
of draught and the beaver is a very 
healthy creature. 
O the tyro we will say this, don’t 
get the notion in your head that 
you can take an axe and a shovel and 
‘dig out a family of beavers in an hour 


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wa , fig him < Gem ame 
Getting ready for a one night camp. The trapper who prospects first will re 
or so. Even if you try to stake the 
entrances to the lodge they will surely 
find some way to escape. 
HE walls of the beaver’s home are 
from three to six feet thick and 
you’ll surely spoil a good axe trying to 
cut through such a barrier, for often 
there are lots of stones which have been 
earried by the beaver along with the 
mud. It’s ashame to break up a beaver’s 
home anyway and we’d advise you to 
try legitimate methods of capturing the 
animal. 
If anyone tells you a beaver is just 
as easy to capture as a muskrat you 
can make up your mind that fellow is 
talking about pretty smart muskrats. 
In places where beavers have been pro- 
tected for some time and the restrictive 
laws are taken off, the animals may 
be easy to catch, for a time. They 
have become accustomed to the man 
smell and attach no significance to the 
presence of tracks around their layout. 
But wait until you get one or two of 
them and see what you’re up against. 
We’ve trapped for beavers that acted 
more like coyotes when it came to dop- 
ing out your sets. 
For our purposes beaver trapping 
may be divided into three classes, Fall, 
Winter and Spring. Fall trapping 
should never be resorted to except in 
the far North where the animal gets a 
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heavy coat along in October. Early 
fall trapping is easy because the ani- 
mals are busy storing their food, fix- 
ing up their dams and mudding the 
lodge. An amateur can tell, with very 
little trouble, where the creatures have 
been traveling extensively and if he 
has any gumption about setting traps, 
will get results. But early trapping 
should be discouraged, for the fur isn’t 
worth half what it would be by mid- 
winter or even late November. The 
usual sets are in the water at the place 
where the animals have their trails for 
dragging brush, or where they travel 
from one dam to another. Sets can 
be made at the entrance to the bank 
burrows, but it is necessary to do some 
close figuring. 
HE burrows are large and the trap 
must be set on some sort of plat- 
form so that it will be in a position to 
grab the animal. In all sets it is best 
to capture the beaver by a hind foot 
if possible, for the trap gets a hold on 
it which is generally a sticker. 
Winter trapping is apt to prove dis- 
couraging to the average man on ac- 
count of the work in connection with 
it. Holes must be cut through the ice 
in order to make the sets of course and 
by the time a fellow has got all splashed 
up, say when it’s forty below, chopping 
(Continued on page 688) 
