Beaver

“ The beavers, and the kingfishers, and the ospreys, of course, know everything that goes on along the rivers. Nothing can pass upstream or down without going by the beaver-dams, and the beavers are always on the watch. You might linger about a beaver-dam all day, and except for the smell, which a man would not notice, you would not believe there was a beaver near. But they are watching you from the cracks and holes in their homes, and in the evening, if they are not afraid of you, you will be astonished to see twenty or thirty beavers come out to play about what you thought was an empty house. ”

“ Beaver?"
"Yes, my son," said the Beaver sorrowfully, "for our fur is in greater demand than ever. In the winter, which is the 'hunting season,' they do their best to force our houses with heavy weapons, and if we take to the water beneath the ice, and swim to our tunnels in the river side, they sound the ice above the banks with an iron chisel, which tells their practised ears the exact spot where our holes are to be found. Then they dig us out—and that is the end of us."
"I'm very sorry, dear Beaver," Phil whispered, stroking the shining fur that brought such trouble on its possessors. ”

“ They sleep in their houses, with their bodies in the water, and their heads resting out of the water on a stick. At twilight, a wise old mother beaver comes out and swims all around the pond or river, looking and smelling. ”

“ Among these sprouts the beaver had fashioned a nest, and was lying curled up, asleep, when Mortimer, drifting silently down within short range, raised his gun and shot at it.
But the beaver is a "hard-lived" animal, and, even when shot at such close quarters, will quite frequently flop off its perch into the water, and, clutching with teeth and claws into roots or grass at the bottom, remain there. ”

“ With hind feet webbed up to the claws, and his broad tail as a rudder, the beaver has so much swimming power that his fore legs are free to carry and place the wood, while his broad orange-coloured teeth, as sharp as chisels, which grow as fast as he wears them away, are his cutting instruments. ”

“ Such hermits are happy fellows, lucky above the majority of beavers, who have no sunlit playground in winter; but they enjoy themselves circumspectly, knowing the danger of being caught in the open. At the slightest alarm, the faint click of snowshoes or a breath of your scent drifting downwind, every beaver disappears under the ice, giving the danger signal by slapping his broad tail on the water as he goes down; and when you hear them again they will be creeping into the living room of the lodge. Rap the roof sharply, after approaching on silent feet, and you hear plop! plop! plop! ”

“ The Common Beaver is an aquatic animal; the structure of its feet and tail enables it to swim with perfect facility. As these animals live principally upon the bark of trees and other hard substances, their front teeth are excessively strong, and by their assistance they are enabled to cut down trees of considerable size, to be used in the construction of the curious edifices for the erection of which they have been long celebrated. Their mode of building, as adopted by the Beaver of America, is described by Hearne with great exactness. ”

“ The BEAVER (Castor fiber, Fig. 25.) is a quadruped, with smooth, glossy, and chesnut-coloured hair; and a flat, oval, and naked tail, marked into scaly divisions, somewhat like the skin of a fish. These animals inhabit the banks of rivers and lakes in woody and unfrequented parts of the north of Europe, Asia, and America: their general length is betwixt two and three feet. In ancient times the beaver is supposed to have been found wild in this country, and its skin was so valuable as to constitute the chief and most valuable fur which the island produced. ”

“ As we wished to make a long excursion, we started at daybreak; that is to say, Reuben, Quambo, and I, with the dogs. Reuben had a great desire to see a beaver settlement which I had once visited when we first came into that part of the country; and I thought that I could find my way to it. Quambo amused us, as we walked along, with all sorts of tales about beavers, raccoons, opossums, bears, and other animals, with the habits of which he was well acquainted.
The beaver is a good-sized animal, being two and a half feet long exclusive of the tail, which is one foot more. ”

“ Promptly had everyone obeyed Mr Ross, who had uttered these commands. He had placed the boys where they could easily see the wonderful way in which these experienced hunters would quickly gather up their beaver harvest after all their effort and toil.
But where are the beavers? They are in all probability out under the ice, swimming about from one kitchen to another, vainly trying to find one in which they can get their lungs full of fresh air. If the men and those saucy little dogs have been successful in closing up all of these resorts, vain are the beavers’ efforts. ”

“ The beaver is the only animal who has a flat, oval tail, covered with scales, which serves as a rudder to direct his course in the water; the only one that has his hind-feet webbed, and the toes of his fore-feet separate, which he uses to convey food to his mouth; the only one which resembles a land animal in the fore parts, and approaches the nature of an aquatic one in the hinder, in short he forms the same shade between quadrupeds and fishes, as the bat [294] forms between quadrupeds and birds. ”

“ The last thing any bird or beast cares to do is to draw attention to the place where he [263] lives; that is as true of eagle or bear as of hummingbird or chipmunk.
Weighing these matters as we stand beside a beaver lodge, our question returns in another form. It is no longer a question of foretelling winter weather, but of anticipating early-spring conditions of land and water, and it reads, By what strange instinct does the beaver build now high, now low, and always just high enough to keep his living room above the crest of the coming floods? ”

“ The form of a beaver resembles the shape of a cucumber which has a short stem, or a duck that has the neck and head cut off, or like a ball of yarn wound in long form and flattened a little, being often thicker than long, or like a swine which is flat on the back, with its belly hanging down. ”

“ Once upon a time, before there were white men on the earth, the Beavers were a family like men. They were thrifty and honest, and spent their time building in the lakes and ponds. They had hands like our hands. They were dressed in gray fur, warm enough for the winters, and dark enough for all the digging which they had to do.
There was no family of all the forest so hard working as the Beavers. The Beaver men had a secret trade of making arrows. ”

“ When there is nothing else to do, the beaver apparently comes into the pond a few times each day for a swim. In the midst of swimming he rises at times to the under surface of the ice and, with his nose against it, exhales a quantity of air. ”

“ One might read almost the entire mass of printed matter concerning the beaver without obtaining correct information about his manners and customs or an accurate description of his works and without getting at the real character of this animal. The actual life and character of the beaver, however, the work which he does, the unusual things which he has accomplished, are really more interesting and place the beaver on a higher plane than do all the fictitious tales and exaggerated accounts written concerning him. ”

“ The beaver took pains to cut the first and lowest notch in this tree directly opposite the opening in the pines. I have seen a number of instances of this kind. And he will sometimes leave the windward side of a grove on a windy day, and cut on the leeward, so that the felled trees are not entangled in falling.
Rarely does more than one beaver work at the same time at a tree. In some instances, however, if the tree be large, two or even more beaver will [Pg 33] work at once. ”

“ The beaver is an amphibious rodent whose natural environment is a pond or a sluggish stream. An industrious home body, operating on a self-imposed economy, he hews trees and builds protecting dams and apartment houses in which he cohabits with [Pg 35] other beavers, all under a system of government much like man’s.
Physically, the beaver is distinguished by his thick coat of soft fur, his hard, incisor-like teeth with which he can cut through the stoutest oak, his palmated hind feet and his horizontally-flattened, scaly tail. ”

“ This plodding, perilous five-mile journey which the beaver made up the mountain to the lake would be easy and care-free for an animal with the physical make-up of a bear or a wolf, but with the beaver it is not surprising that only two of the emigrants survived this supreme trial and [Pg 178] escaped the numerous dangers of the pilgrimage. ”

“ Little Mary and the Bee.
“During the winter we saw very little of our beavers. Through the cold season they lay snug in their houses—although not in a state of torpidity, as the beaver does not become torpid in winter. He only keeps within doors, and spends most of his time in eating and sleeping; but he goes out of his house at intervals to wash and clean himself, for the beaver is an animal of very precise habits. He is not compelled, however, to go abroad in search of food. As we have seen, he lays up a stock which serves him throughout the cold season. ”

“ It is generally allowed that the beaver, far from having a superiority over other animals, seems to be inferior to many of them, in his merely individual qualities; and this fact I am enabled to confirm, by having had a young beaver, which was sent me from Canada, in 1758, alive in my possession for more than a twelvemonth. This animal is mild, peaceable, and familiar; it is rather inclined to be gloomy and melancholy ”

“ One day must have been very much like another under their covering of ice. Inside the lodge, the diameter was three or four feet and about the same in height. Each beaver has his own particular bed, which he always occupies, and the house is kept very neat and clean. I do not imagine there was much regularity in their meals, but whenever they felt hungry, one would go to the pile of logs near the dam and select a piece. ”

“ The Beaver is about the size of the badger; his head short, his ears round and small, his fore teeth long, sharp, and strong, and well calculated for the part which Nature has allotted him: the tail is of an oval form, and covered with a scaly skin.
Beavers are natives of North America, and more particularly the north of Canada. They are also found in Europe, and were formerly abundant in many places. Their houses are constructed with earth, stones, and sticks, neatly arranged and worked together by their paws. ”

“ The instinct of the beaver approaches the bounds of reason. Their dexterity in constructing habitations and rearing mounds to repel the watery element, surpasses that of all other animals. A gentleman who resided where they abound, wished to ascertain whether this was inherent, or the effect of imitation. ”

“ A large beaver will carry in his mouth a stick I should not like to carry on my shoulder, for two or three hundred yards to the water, and then float it off to where he wants to take it. The kinds of trees used by the beavers are willow and poplar—the round-leaved poplar they prefer. The Canada beavers, where the poplars are large, lumber (i.e. cut down) on a larger scale; they cut trees a foot through, but in that case only make use of the limbs, which are gnawed off the trunk in suitable lengths. The beaver is not a climbing animal. ”

“ They are mighty industrious animals, the beaver. You know, if we see a man that is hard at work all the time, we say he works like a beaver. They are busy animals, and they keep at it all the time."
"What animals are there, Hugh, that kill the beaver? ”

“ The beavers, on the other hand, are not only social by dwelling near each other, but by joining in a work which is intended for the benefit of the community.” As everyone knows, the beaver is an aquatic animal, as is sufficiently indicated by his appearance. He has a dense, woolly coat, which, as in the case of the otter and the still more water-loving seals, is protected by an outer covering of long, smooth hairs, which are of a reddish brown colour. ”

“ The beaver performs the greatest work of the animal species, which comprehends a more extensive source of enjoyments than what any other creatures have achieved, all of which appears to be a preconcerted plan of their own to obtain the results of their labors, but still may be, as some have thought, an instinct of their natures to do it without design. ”

“ The beaver is an inhabitant of north temperate climates, where the winters are long and the cold sharp: he is a creature of solitudes where wild carnivorous animals share with him the woodlands and the banks, and to them as to man, he is likely to fall a prey. The hunters and trappers as well as the wolves consider the beaver’s flesh a toothsome morsel, and not only is his fur an article of commerce, but a substance called castoreum found in two small sacs in his body is used to some extent in medicine and perfumery. ”

“ But after the tree has been felled, ofttimes three or four beaver will unite to roll a large section to the water. In doing this, some may stand with paws against it and push, and others may put their sides or hips against it. On land, as in the water, small limb-covered trees are dragged butt foremost so as to meet the least resistance. Sometimes the beaver drags walking backwards; at other times he is alongside the tree carrying and dragging it forward.
IN THE HARVEST-FIELD
Aspens cut by beaver
Early explorers say that beaver do most of their work at night. ”