One autumn I watched a beaver colony and observed the customs of its
primitive inhabitants as they gathered their harvest for winter. It
was the Spruce Tree Colony, the most attractive of the sixteen beaver
municipalities on the big moraine on the slope of Long's Peak.
The first evening I concealed myself close to the beaver house by the
edge of the pond. Just at sunset a large, aged beaver of striking,
patriarchal appearance rose in the water by the house, and swam
slowly, silently round the pond. He kept close to the shore and
appeared to be scouting to see if an enemy lurked near. On completing
the circuit of the pond, he climbed upon the end of a log that was
thrust a few feet out into the water. Presently several other beaver
appeared in the water close to the house. A few of these at once left
the pond and nosed quietly about on the shore. The others swam about
for some minutes and then joined their comrades on land, where all
rested for a time.
Meanwhile the aged beaver had lifted a small aspen limb out of the
water and was squatted on the log, leisurely eating bark. Before many
minutes elapsed the other beavers became restless and finally started
up the slope in a runway. They traveled slowly in single file and one
by one vanished amid the tall sedge. The old beaver slipped
noiselessly into the water, and a series of low waves pointed toward
the house. It was dark as I stole away in silence for the night, and
Mars was gently throbbing in the black water.
This was an old beaver settlement, and the numerous harvests gathered
by its inhabitants had long since exhausted the near-by growths of
aspen, the bark of which is the favorite food of North American
beaver, though the bark of the willow, cottonwood, alder, and birch is
also eaten. An examination of the aspen supply, together with the
lines of transportation,--the runways, canals, and ponds,--indicated
that this year's harvest would have to be brought a long distance. The
place it would come from was an aspen grove far up the slope, about a
quarter of a mile distant from the main house, and perhaps a hundred
and twenty feet above it. In this grove I cut three notches in the
trunks of several trees to enable me to identify them whether in the
garnered pile by a house or along the line of transportation to it.
The grounds of this colony occupied several acres on a terraced,
moderately steep slope of a mountain moraine. Along one side rushed a
swift stream on which the colonists maintained three but little used
ponds. On the opposite side were the slope and summit of the moraine.
There was a large pond at the bottom, and one or two small ponds, or
water-filled basins, dotted each of the five terraces which rose
above. The entire grounds were perforated with subterranean
passageways or tunnels.
Beaver commonly fill their ponds by damming a brook or a river. But
this colony obtained most of its water-supply from springs which
poured forth abundantly on the uppermost terrace, where the water was
led into one pond and a number of basins. Overflowing from these, it
either made a merry little cascade or went to lubricate a slide on
the short slopes which led to the ponds on the terrace below. The
waters from all terraces were gathered into a large pond at the
bottom. This pond measured six hundred feet in circumference. The
crooked and almost encircling grass-grown dam was six feet high and
four hundred feet long. In its upper edge stood the main house, which
was eight feet high and forty feet in circumference. There was also
another house on one of the terraces.
After notching the aspens I spent some time exploring the colony
grounds and did not return to the marked trees until forty-eight hours
had elapsed. Harvest had begun, and one of the largest notched trees
had been felled and removed. Its gnawed stump was six inches in
diameter and stood fifteen inches high. The limbs had been trimmed
off, and a number of these lay scattered about the stump. The trunk,
which must have been about eighteen feet long, had disappeared, cut
into lengths of from three to six feet, probably, and started toward
the harvest pile. Wondering for which house these logs were intended,
I followed, hoping to trace and trail them to the house, or find them
_en route_. From the spot where they were cut, they had evidently been
rolled down a steep, grassy seventy-foot slope, at the bottom of this
dragged an equal distance over a level stretch among some lodge-pole
pines, and then pushed or dragged along a narrow runway that had been
cut through a rank growth of willows. Once through the willows, they
were pushed into the uppermost pond. They were taken across this,
forced over the dam on the opposite side, and shot down a slide into
the pond which contained the smaller house. Only forty-eight hours
before, the little logs which I was following were in a tree, and now
I expected to find them by this house. It was good work to have got
them here so quickly, I thought. But no logs could be found by the
house or in the pond! The folks at this place had not yet laid up
anything for winter. The logs must have gone farther.
On the opposite side of this pond I found where the logs had been
dragged across the broad dam and then heaved into a long, wet slide
which landed them in a small, shallow harbor in the grass. From this
point a canal about eighty feet long ran around the brow of the
terrace and ended at the top of a long slide which reached to the big
pond. This canal was new and probably had been dug especially for this
harvest. For sixty feet of its length it was quite regular in form and
had an average width of thirty inches and a depth of fourteen. The mud
dug in making it was piled evenly along the lower side. Altogether it
looked more like the work of a careful man with a shovel than of
beaver without tools. Seepage and overflow from the ponds above filled
and flowed slowly through it and out at the farther end, where it
swept down the long slide into the big pond. Through this canal the
logs had been taken one by one. At the farther end I found the
butt-end log. It probably had been too heavy to heave out of the
canal, but tracks in the mud indicated that there was a hard tussle
before it was abandoned.
The pile of winter supplies was started. Close to the big house a few
aspen leaves fluttered on twigs in the water; evidently these twigs
were attached to limbs or larger pieces of aspen that were piled
beneath the surface. Could it be that the aspen which I had marked on
the mountainside a quarter of a mile distant so short a time before,
and which I had followed over slope and slide, through canal and
basin, was now piled on the bottom of this pond? I waded out into the
water, prodded about with a pole, and found several smaller logs.
Dragging one of these to the surface, I found there were three notches
in it.
Evidently these heavy green tree cuttings had been sunk to the bottom
simply by the piling of other similar cuttings upon them. With this
heavy material in the still water a slight contact with the bottom
would prevent the drifting of accumulated cuttings until a heavy pile
could be formed. However, in deep or swift water I have noticed that
an anchorage for the first few pieces was secured by placing these
upon the lower slope of the house or against the dam.
Scores of aspens were felled in the grove where the notched ones were.
They were trimmed, cut into sections, and limbs, logs, and all taken
over the route of the one I had followed, and at last placed in a pile
beside the big house. This harvest-gathering went on for a month. All
about was busy, earnest preparation for winter. The squirrels from the
tree-tops kept a rattling rain of cones on the leaf-strewn forest
floor, the cheery chipmunk foraged and frolicked among the withered
leaves and plants, while aspens with leaves of gold fell before the
ivory sickles of the beaver. Splendid glimpses, grand views, I had of
this strange harvest-home. How busy the beavers were! They were busy
in the grove on the steep mountainside; they tugged logs across the
runways; they hurried them across the water-basins, wrestled with them
in canals, and merrily piled them by the rude house in the water. And
I watched them through the changing hours; I saw their shadowy
activity in the starry, silent night; I saw them hopefully leave home
for the harvest groves in the serene twilight, and I watched them
working busily in the light of the noonday sun.
Most of the aspens were cut off between thirteen and fifteen inches
above the ground. A few stumps were less than five inches high, while
a number were four feet high. These high cuttings were probably made
from reclining trunks of lodged aspens which were afterward removed.
The average diameter of the aspens cut was four and one half inches at
the top of the stump. Numerous seedlings of an inch diameter were cut,
and the largest tree felled for this harvest measured fourteen inches
across the stump. This had been laid low only a few hours before I
found it, and a bushel of white chips and cuttings encircled the
lifeless stump like a wreath. In falling, the top had become entangled
in an alder thicket and lodged six feet from the ground. It remained
in this position for several days and was apparently abandoned; but
the last time I went to see it the alders which upheld it were being
cut away. Although the alders were thick upon the ground, only those
which had upheld the aspen had been cut. It may be that the beaver
which felled them looked and thought before they went ahead with this
cutting.
Why had this and several other large aspens been left uncut in a place
where all were convenient for harvest? All other neighboring aspens
were cut years ago. One explanation is that the beaver realized that
the tops of the aspens were entangled and interlocked in the limbs of
crowding spruces and would not fall if cut off at the bottom. This and
one other aspen were the only large ones that were felled, and the
tops of these had been recently released by the overturning of some
spruces and the breaking of several branches on others. Other
scattered large aspens were left uncut, but all of these were clasped
in the arms of near-by spruces.
It was the habit of these colonists to transfer a tree to the harvest
pile promptly after cutting it down. But one morning I found logs on
slides and in canals, and unfinished work in the grove, as though
everything had been suddenly dropped in the night when work was at its
height. Coyotes had howled freely during the night, but this was not
uncommon. In going over the grounds I found the explanation of this
untidy work in a bear track and numerous wolf tracks, freshly moulded
in the muddy places.
After the bulk of the harvest was gathered, I went one day to the
opposite side of the moraine and briefly observed the methods of the
Island beaver colony. The ways of the two colonies were in some
things very different. In the Spruce Tree Colony the custom was to
move the felled aspen promptly to the harvest pile. In the Island
Colony the custom was to cut down most of the harvest before
transporting any of it to the pile beside the house. Of the one
hundred and sixty-two trees that had been felled for this harvest, one
hundred and twenty-seven were still lying where they fell. However,
the work of transporting was getting under way; a few logs were in the
pile beside the house, and numerous others were scattered along the
canals, runways, and slides between the house and the harvest grove.
[Illustration: THE SPRUCE TREE HOUSE AND FOOD-PILE, OCTOBER 12]
There was more wasted labor, too, in the Island Colony. This was
noticeable in the attempts that had been made to fell limb-entangled
trees that could not fall. One five-inch aspen had three times been
cut off at the bottom. The third cut was more than three feet from the
ground, and was made by a beaver working from the top of a fallen log.
Still this high-cut aspen refused to come down and there it hung like
a collapsed balloon entangled in tree-tops.
Prowling hunters have compelled most beaver to work at night, but the
Spruce Tree Colony was an isolated one, and occasionally its members
worked and even played in the sunshine. Each day I secluded myself,
kept still, and waited; and on a few occasions watched them as they
worked in the light.
One windy day, just as I was unroping myself from the shaking limb of
a spruce, I saw four beaver plodding along in single file beneath.
They had come out of a hole between the roots of the spruce. At an
aspen growth about fifty feet distant they separated. Though they had
been closely assembled, each appeared utterly oblivious of the
presence of the others. One squatted on the ground by an aspen, took a
bite of bark out of it, and ate leisurely. By and by he rose, clasped
the aspen with fore paws, and began to bite chips from it
systematically. He was deliberately cutting it down. The most aged
beaver waddled near an aspen, gazed into its top for a few seconds,
then moved away about ten feet and started to fell a five-inch aspen.
The one rejected was entangled at the top. Presently the third beaver
selected a tree, and after some trouble in getting comfortably seated,
or squatted, also began cutting. The fourth beaver disappeared and I
did not see him again. While I was looking for this one the huge, aged
beaver whose venerable appearance had impressed me the first evening
appeared on the scene. He came out of a hole beneath some spruces
about a hundred feet distant. He looked neither to right nor to left,
nor up nor down, as he ambled toward the aspen growth. When about
halfway there he wheeled suddenly and took an uneasy survey of the
open he had traversed, as though he had heard an enemy behind. Then
with apparently stolid indifference he went on leisurely, and for a
time paused among the cutters, which did nothing to indicate that they
realized his presence. He ate some bark from a green limb on the
ground, moved on, and went into the hole beneath me. He appeared so
large that I afterward measured the distance between the two aspens
where he paused. He was not less than three and a half feet long and
probably weighed fifty pounds. He had all his toes; there was no white
spot on his body; in fact, there was neither mark nor blemish by
which I could positively identify him. Yet I feel that in my month
around the colony I beheld the patriarch of the first evening in
several scenes of action.
Sixty-seven minutes after the second beaver began cutting he made a
brief pause; then he suddenly thudded the ground with his tail,
hurriedly took out a few more chips, and ran away, with the other two
beaver a little in advance, just as his four-inch aspen settled over
and fell. All paused for a time close to the hole beneath me, and then
the old beaver returned to his work. The one that had felled his tree
followed closely and at once began on another aspen. The other beaver,
with his aspen half cut off, went into the hole and did not again come
out. By and by an old and a young beaver came out of the hole. The
young one at once began cutting limbs off the recently felled aspen,
while the other began work on the half-cut tree; but he ignored the
work already done, and finally severed the trunk about four inches
above the cut made by the other. Suddenly the old beaver whacked the
ground and ran, but at thirty feet distant he paused and nervously
thumped the ground with his tail, as his aspen slowly settled and
fell. Then he went into the hole beneath me.
This year's harvest was so much larger than usual that it may be the
population of this colony had been increased by the arrival of
emigrants from a persecuted colony down in the valley. The total
harvest numbered four hundred and forty-three trees. These made a
harvest pile four feet high and ninety feet in circumference. A thick
covering of willows was placed on top of the harvest pile,--I cannot
tell for what reason unless it was to sink all the aspens below reach
of the ice. This bulk of stores together with numerous roots of willow
and water plants, which are eaten in the water from the bottom of the
pond, would support a numerous beaver population through the days of
ice and snow.
When I took my last tour through the colony everything was ready for
the long and cold winter. Dams were in repair and ponds were brimming
over with water, the fresh coats of mud on the houses were freezing to
defy enemies, and a bountiful harvest was home. Harvest-gathering is
full of hope and romance. What a joy it must be to every man or
animal who has a hand in it! What a satisfaction, too, for all
dependent upon a harvest, to know that there is abundance stored for
all the frosty days!
The people of this wild, strange, picturesque colony had planned and
prepared well. I wished them a winter unvisited by cruel fate or foe,
and trusted that when June came again the fat and furry young beavers
would play with the aged one amid the tiger lilies in the shadows of
the big spruce trees.