THE BEAVER.
In the settlement of the Western States and Territories one of the
sources of income, and the only industry which commanded cash for the
efforts involved, was that of beaver trapping, the skin of the beaver
selling as high as fifteen or twenty dollars. The weight of the beaver
is from thirty to sixty pounds, and it is an animal possessed of great
intelligence, as the amount and kind of work accomplished by it shows.
It is a natural-born engineer, as connected with water; it can build
dams across small streams that defy the freshets, and that hold the
water equal, if not superior, to the very best dams that can be
constructed by skilled engineers.
In making their dams the sticks and poles which they use in the
construction of the same are cut with their teeth, of which they have
four, two in the upper part of the mouth and two in the lower.
These poles they place across each other in all directions. They build
their dams during the fall usually, and should they need repair, the
work is done before the very cold weather commences, working only at
night if danger is near.
In the month of October they generally collect their food, which
consists largely of the cottonwood; this is cut in lengths of from two
to six feet, the diameter being sometimes six inches, and carry it into
their ponds made by the dams, and sunk in the deepest portion of the
same. I should have stated that the higher up the stream they go, their
dams are built correspondingly higher; hence a dam built at an altitude
of 1,000 feet would not be built as high as one built at an altitude of
3,000 feet, in order to overcome the deeper freezing at that point, for
in constructing these dams they must be of sufficient height to give
plenty of room to get at their food in the water under the ice. The
beaver does not eat a particle of meat of any kind. The popular idea is
that as they are animals that live in and about the water, that they
live upon fish, but this is not so; for, as above stated, their
principal food is the bark and the tender-wood of the cottonwood, and
they also eat of other barks.
They are one of the most cleanly animals that lives. They live in the
purest water that can be found, generally selecting streams that take
their rise in the mountains, and where they can have an abundance of
water the year round to live in. They dam up the streams in order to
make ponds of sufficient depth to swim in under the ice to obtain their
food, for the bottom of this pond is their store-room during the winter
months.
Beavers are exceedingly wild, seldom showing themselves, and from the
bottom of their pond they make a tunnel leading to the house where they
sleep, so that they can pass to the same unobserved by man or beast.
When they make their ponds where the banks are low, they make their
house upon the top of the ground, sometimes a rod or more from the edge
of the pond, cutting timber of the size of a finger to two or three
inches in diameter, placing the sticks in very much the same way as they
do in building their dams, crossing and recrossing them so that it is
quite a job to tear one of their houses to pieces; in fact no one but a
man would undertake the task, and one that has never had any experience
would find it very difficult to accomplish. If one does it in the hope
of catching the animal, he toils in vain, for he is soon scented, and
the beaver takes refuge in the pond, passing through the underground
tunnel. Where they find high banks, they start a tunnel several feet
below the surface of the water and run it ascending, so as to reach a
point in the bank six or eight or may be ten feet above the surface of
the water underground, stopping before reaching the top of the ground,
and at which point they take out dirt until they have a place
sufficiently large for their bed. This kind of a house they much prefer
to one made with sticks on the surface of the ground, as they are
completely hidden from observation or the possibility of interruption
from any one.
The beaver's feet are webbed for the purpose of swimming, and there are
nails on his feet, so that he can scratch the earth almost equal to a
badger. He has a paddle-formed tail, which on a large full-grown beaver
is from ten to twelve inches long and from six to seven inches broad,
and without any hair on it. These are tough and sinewy, and when cooked
they make a very fine food, the flavor reminding one of pig's feet or
calf's head. They make considerable use of their tail in performing
their work as well as in swimming.
The beaver reproduces itself each year. The offspring are generally two
in number, and these can be easily tamed.
The trappers in trapping for the beaver have to use great precaution in
approaching the place where they intend to set the traps, often getting
into the stream above or below and wading for some distance. If they
walked upon the bank the beaver would scent them from the footprints.
Beavers, like all other wild animals, dread the sight or scent of man
more than anything else. In setting the traps the trappers invariably
choose as deep water as they can find, so that when a beaver is caught
he will drown himself in his struggles to get free from the trap; for
if this does not occur, he has often been known to cut off, with the
sharp chisel used in cutting timber, the foot that is caught in the
trap, so that it is not infrequent when the trapper comes in the morning
to find a foot of the beaver instead of the beaver himself, and often he
catches a beaver with only three feet.
The beaver, considered as an engineer, is a remarkable animal. He can
run a tunnel as direct as the best engineer could do with his
instruments to guide him. I have seen where they have built a dam across
a stream, and not having a sufficient head of water to keep their pond
full, they would cross to a stream higher up the side of the mountain,
and cut a ditch from the upper stream and connect it with the pond of
the lower, and do it as neatly as an engineer with his tools could
possibly do it. I have often said that the buck beaver in the Rocky
Mountains had more engineering skill than the entire corps of engineers
who were connected with General Grant's army when he besieged Vicksburg
on the banks of the Mississippi. The beaver would never have attempted
to turn the Mississippi into a canal to change its channel without first
making a dam across the channel below the point of starting the canal.
The beaver, as I have said, rivals and sometimes even excels the
ingenuity of man.
Another of the peculiarities of the beaver is the great sharpness of its
teeth, remaining for many years as sharp as the best edged tool. The
mechanic with the finest steel can not make a tool that will not in a
short time become so blunt and so dulled as to require renewed
sharpening, and this, with the beaver, would have to be repeated
hundreds of times in order to do service with it during the whole of its
lifetime, which is from ten to fifteen years if it is permitted to live
the allotted years of a beaver.
In one of my trips on a steamer of the Upper Missouri, one day while the
boat's crew were getting their supply of wood, I took my gun and started
along the river-bank in the hope of seeing an elk or deer that I might
shoot. I came to a place on the river where the banks were very high,
and I observed that a lot of cottonwood saplings from six to eight
inches in diameter had been felled and cut into sections. I saw that it
had been recently done, and I at first supposed that it had been done by
some one with an ax, but when I reached the spot, I saw that it was the
work of the beavers and that some of the wood had been dragged away. I
followed the trail for a few steps, when I came to the mouth of a
tunnel, and discovered that the timber had been dragged through it. The
tunnel had an incline of about thirty-five degrees, and was as straight
as if it had been made with an auger. This was in the month of October,
at the time when it was their custom to stow away their food for the
winter. They had no dam at this point, as the water was deep, and they
were drawing the timbers down through the tunnel and sinking them in the
deep water, so that they could have access to it during the period when
the river would be frozen over. The reason for the tunnel, of which I
have spoken, was that the river-bank for some distance was high and
almost perpendicular, and the beaver, being a very clumsy animal with
short legs, his only alternative was to make a tunnel in order to get
his winter food. They have a way of sinking the cottonwood and keeping
it down in their pond or simply in the deep water when they do not make
dams. This family of beavers evidently had their house far under the
surface of the ground, for the place was admirably adapted for them to
make such a home, the banks being so high above the water. One could see
no trace whatever of the beaver, or have a knowledge of where he was,
more than the opening of the tunnel and where the timber had been cut;
indeed, one might pass hundreds of times and not be conscious that
beavers were living right under one's feet. I picked up one of the chips
which the beaver had cut, measuring about seven inches in length, and
carried it home with me as a curiosity.