In Beaver World

Part 1

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IN BEAVER WORLD

+-----------------------------------------+ | By Enos A. Mills | | | | IN BEAVER WORLD. Illustrated. | | THE SPELL OF THE ROCKIES. Illustrated. | | WILD LIFE ON THE ROCKIES. Illustrated. | | HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY | | BOSTON AND NEW YORK | +-----------------------------------------+

IN BEAVER WORLD

ENOS A. MILLS

With Illustrations from Photographs by the Author

Boston and New York Houghton Mifflin Company The Riverside Press Cambridge Mdccccxiii

Copyright, 1913, by Enos A. Mills All Rights Reserved

Published March 1913

To J. Horace McFarland

Preface

This book is the result of beaver studies which cover a period of twenty-seven years. During these years I have rambled through every State in the Union and visited Mexico, Canada, and Alaska. In the course of these rambles notice was taken of trees, birds, flowers, glaciers, and bears, and studious attention devoted to the beaver. No opportunity for beaver study was missed, and many a long journey was made for the purpose of investigating the conditions in live colonies or in making measurements in the ruins of old ones. These investigations were made during every season of the year, and often a week was spent in one colony. I have seen beaver at work scores of times, and on a few occasions dozens at one time.

Beaver have been my neighbors since I was a boy. At any time during the past twenty-five years I could go from my cabin on the slope of Long's Peak, Colorado, to a number of colonies within fifteen minutes. Studies were carried on in these near-by colonies in spring, summer, autumn, and winter.

One autumn my entire time was spent in making observations and watching the activities of beaver in fourteen colonies. Sixty-four days in succession I visited these colonies, three of them twice daily. These daily investigations enabled me to see the preparations for winter from beginning to end. They also enabled me to understand details which with infrequent visits I could not have even discovered. During this autumn I saw two houses built and a number of old ones repaired and plastered. I also saw the digging of one canal, the repairing of a number of old dams, and the building of two new ones. In three of these colonies I tallied each day the additional number of trees cut for harvest. I saw many trees felled, and noted the manner in which they were moved by land and floated by water.

The greater number of the papers in this book were written especially for it. Parts of the others have been used in my books Wild Life on the Rockies and The Spell of the Rockies. "The Beaver's Engineering" appeared in the Saturday Evening Post, and I am indebted to McClure's for permission to use "Beaver Pioneers."

Beaver works are of economical and educational value besides adding a charm to the wilds. The beaver is a persistent practicer of conservation and should not perish from the hills and mountains of our land. Altogether the beaver has so many interesting ways, is so useful, skillful, practical, and picturesque that his life and his deeds deserve a larger place in literature and in our hearts.

E. A. M.

Contents

Working like a Beaver 1 Our Friend the Beaver 17 The Beaver Past and Present 37 As Others See Him 51 The Beaver Dam 63 Harvest Time with Beavers 81 Transportation Facilities 99 The Primitive House 117 The Beaver's Engineering 137 The Ruined Colony 151 Beaver Pioneers 173 The Colony in Winter 195 The Original Conservationist 211 Bibliographical Note 223 Index 225

Illustrations

Beaver World Frontispiece A Young Beaver on the side of a Beaver House 6 A Young Beaver Sunning Himself 22 In the Harvest-Field 32 Aspens cut by Beaver. Beaver Ponds 42 A New Dam 66 Part of an Old Dam 1040 Feet Long 78 The Spruce Tree House and Food-Pile, October 12 92 Lake-Bed Canals at Lily Lake, October, 1911 102 Section of a 750-foot Canal at Lily Lake 102 Plan of Beaver Colony on Jefferson River, near Three Forks, Montana 108 An Unplastered and a Plastered House 124 The 334-foot Canal 140 Plan of Moraine Colony, with Dead-Wood Dam 144 The Dead-Wood Dam 148 The Moraine House before and after Enlargement 168 House in Lily Lake 180 House, Food-Pile, Pond, and Dam in Winter 198 Where Beaver formerly lived and spread Soil 218

Working like a Beaver

One September day I saw a number of beaver at work upon a half-finished house. One part of the house had been carried up about two feet above the water, and against this were leaned numerous sticks, which stood upon the top of the foundation just above water-level. After these sticks were arranged, they were covered with turf and mud which the beaver scooped from the bottom of the pond. In bringing this earth covering up, the beaver invariably came out of the water at a given point, and over a short slide worn on the side of the house climbed up to the height where they were to deposit their load, which was carried in the fore paws. Then they edged round and put the mud-ball upon the house. From this point they descended directly to the water, but when they emerged with the next handful, they came out at the bottom of the slide, and again climbed up it.

The beaver often does a large amount of work in a short time. A small dam may be built up in a few nights, or a number of trees felled, or possibly a long burrow or tunnel clawed in the earth during a brief period. In most cases, however, beaver works of magnitude are monuments of old days, and have required a long time to construct, being probably the work of more than one generation. It is rare for a large dam or canal to be constructed in one season. A thousand feet of dam is the accumulated work of years. An aged beaver may have lived all his life in one locality, born in the house in which his parents were born, and he might rise upon the thousand-foot dam which held his pond and say, "My grandparents half a dozen centuries ago commenced this dam, and I do not know which one of my ancestors completed it."

Although the beaver is a tireless and an effective worker, he does not work unless there is need to do so. Usually his summer is a rambling vacation spent away from home. His longest period of labor is during September and October, when the harvest is gathered and general preparations made for the long winter. Baby beavers take part in the harvest-getting, though probably without accomplishing very much. During most winters he has weeks of routine in the house and ponds with nothing urgent to do except sleep and eat.

He works not only tooth and nail, but tooth and tail. The tail is one of the most conspicuous organs of the beaver. Volumes have been written concerning it. It is nearly flat, is black in color, and is a convenient and much-used appendage. It serves for a rudder, a stool, a prop, a scull, and a signal club. It may be used for a trowel, but I have never seen it so used. It serves one purpose that apparently has not been discussed in print; on a few occasions I have seen a beaver carry a small daub of mud or some sticks clasped between the tail and the belly. It gives this awkward animal increased awkwardness and even an uncouth appearance to see him humped up, with tail tucked between his legs, in order to clasp something between it and his belly.

He is accomplished in the use of arms and hands. With hands he is able to hold sticks and handle them with great dexterity. Like any clawing animal he uses his hands or fore paws, to dig holes or tunnels and to excavate burrows and water-basins. His hind feet are the chief propelling power in swimming, although the tail, which may be turned almost on edge and is capable of diagonal movement, is sometimes brought into play as a scull when the beaver is at his swiftest. In the water beaver move about freely and apparently with the greatest enjoyment. They are delightfully swift and agile swimmers, in decided contrast with their awkward slowness upon the ground. They can swim two hundred yards under water without once coming to the surface, and have the ability to remain under water from five to ten minutes. On one occasion a beaver remained under water longer than eleven minutes, and came to the top none the worse, apparently, for this long period of suspended breathing.

It is in standing erect that the beaver is at his best. In this attitude the awkwardness and the dull appearance of all-fours are absent, and he is a statue of alertness. With feet parallel and in line, tail at right angles to the body and resting horizontally on the ground, and hands held against the breast, he has the happy and childish eagerness of a standing chipmunk, and the alert and capable attitude of an erect and listening grizzly bear.

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