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FOREST NEIGHBORS
_"And the Northern Lights come down,
To dance with the houseless snow;
And God, Who clears the grounding berg,
And steers the grinding floe,
He hears the cry of the little kit-fox,
And the lemming, on the snow."_
RUDYARD KIPLING.
[Illustration: _The Beaver Lumbering._]
FOREST NEIGHBORS
Life Stories of Wild Animals
by
WILLIAM DAVENPORT HULBERT
Illustrated
Doubleday, Page & Co.
Garden City
New York
1914
Copyright, 1900, 1901, and 1902, by
the S. S. Mcclure Co.
Copyright, 1902, by
Doubleday, Page & Co.
_To my Sister_
KATHARINE GRACE HULBERT
CONTENTS
PAGE
INTRODUCTION xi
THE BIOGRAPHY OF A BEAVER 1
THE KING OF THE TROUT STREAM 41
THE STRENUOUS LIFE OF A CANADA LYNX 83
POINTERS FROM A PORCUPINE QUILL 125
THE ADVENTURES OF A LOON 163
THE MAKING OF A GLIMMERGLASS BUCK 199
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
The Beaver Lumbering _Frontispiece_
PAGE
"On the grass in the warm, quiet sunshine of
an autumn afternoon" 6
Building the Dam 22
Nesting Grounds 62
"He tried jumping out of the water" 72
"The hole was suddenly darkened, and a round,
hairy face looked in" 100
"He was a very presentable young lynx" 110
"They both stood still and looked at each other" 120
"High up in the top of a tall hemlock" 132
"He quickly made his way to the beach" 148
"He went under as simply as you would step out
of bed" 166
"She herself was a rarely beautiful sight" 170
"The old earth sliding southward fifty miles
an hour" 180
"He was a baby to be proud of" 202
"The buck was nearing the prime of life" 226
"Wherever they went they were always struggling
and fighting" 230
_INTRODUCTION_
_Some thirty years ago, while out on one of his landlooking trips in
the woods of Northern Michigan, my father came upon a little lake which
seemed to him the loveliest that he had ever seen, though he had visited
many in the course of his explorations. The wild ponds are very apt to
be shallow and muddy, with low, marshy shores; but this one was deep and
clear, and its high banks were clothed with a splendid growth of beech,
maple and birch. Tall elms stood guard along the water's edge, and here
and there the hardwood forest was broken by dark hemlock groves, and
groups of lordly pine-trees, lifting their great green heads high above
their deciduous neighbors. Only in one place, around the extreme eastern
end, the ground was flat and wet; and there the tamarack swamp showed
golden yellow in October, and light, delicate green in late spring. Wild
morning-glories grew on the grassy point that put out from the northern
shore, and in the bays the white water-lilies were blossoming. Nearly
two miles long and three-quarters of a mile wide, it lay basking and
shimmering in the sunshine, a big, broad, beautiful sheet of water set
down in the very heart of the woods._
_There were no settlers anywhere near, nor even any Indians, yet there
was no lack of inhabitants. Bears and wolves and a host of smaller
animals were to be found, and along the shores were runways that had
been worn deep in the soil by the tread of generation after generation
of dainty little cloven hoofs. I suppose that some of those paths have
been used by the deer for hundreds, and perhaps thousands, of years._
_The lands around the entire lake were offered for sale by the United
States Government at the ridiculously low price which Uncle Sam has
asked for most of his possessions; and with the help of some friends my
father bought the whole shore. During the years which followed he was
occupied in various ways, and some of the best recollections of my
boyhood are of the days and the nights which I spent with him on his
fishing-tug, steaming about the Straits of Mackinac and the northern
part of Lake Huron. But he could not forget the Glimmerglass, that
little wild lake up in the woods. He had fallen in love with it at first
sight, and at last he took his family and went there to live._
_Human neighbors were scarce around the lake, and perhaps that was one
reason why we took such a lively interest in the other residents--those
who were there ahead of us. "Him and me's chums," my small sister said
of the red-squirrel that hung around the log-barn. And some of the
animals seemed to take a very lively interest in us. The chipmunks came
into the house occasionally, on foraging expeditions; and so, I regret
to say, did the skunks. There was a woodchuck who used to come to the
back door, looking for scraps, and who learned to sit bolt upright and
hold a pancake in his fore paws while he nibbled at it, without being in
the least disturbed by the presence and the comments of half a dozen
spectators. The porcupines became a never-ending nuisance, for they made
almost nightly visits to the woodshed. To kill them was of little use,
for the next night--or perhaps before morning--there were others to take
their places. Once in a while one of them would climb up onto the roof
of the house; and between his teeth and his feet and the rattling of his
quills on the shingles, the racket that he made was out of all
proportion to his size._
It is sweet to lie at evening in your little trundle-bed,
And to listen to a porky gnawing shingles overhead;
Porky, porky, porky, porky;
Gnawing shingles overhead.
_The wolves had been pretty nearly exterminated since my father's first
visit to the lake, and we saw little or nothing of them. The bears
seemed to be more numerous, but they were very shy and retiring. We
found their tracks more often than we came upon the animals themselves.
Some of the cat tribe remained, and occasionally placed themselves in
evidence. My brother came in one day from a long tramp on snow-shoes,
and told how he had met one of them standing guard over the remains of a
deer, and how the lynx had held him up and made him go around. Beavers
were getting scarce, though a few were still left on the more secluded
streams. Deer, on the contrary, were very plentiful. Many a time they
invaded our garden-patch and helped themselves to our fresh vegetables._
_One August afternoon a flock of eight young partridges, of that
spring's hatching, coolly marched out of the woods and into the
clearing, as if they were bent on investigating their new neighbors.
Partridges appear to be subject to occasional fits of stupidity, and to
temporary (or possibly permanent) loss of common-sense; but it may be
that in this case the birds were too young and inexperienced to realize
what they were doing. Or perhaps they knew that it was Sunday, and that
the rules of the household forbade shooting on that day. If so, their
confidence was sadly misplaced. We didn't shoot them, but we did
surround them, and by working carefully and cautiously we "shooed" them
into an empty log-house. And the next day we had them for dinner._
_Around the shores of the Glimmerglass a few loons and wild-ducks
usually nested, and in the autumn the large flocks from the Far North
often stopped there for short visits, on their way south for the winter.
They were more sociable than you would suppose--or at least the loons
were--and the same small girl who had made friends with the red-squirrel
learned to talk to the big birds._
_Down in the water the herring and a large species of salmon trout made
their homes, and probably enjoyed themselves till they met with the
gill-net and the trolling-hook. But herring and salmon trout did not
satisfy us; we wanted brook trout, too. And so one day a shipment of
babies arrived from the hatchery at Sault Ste. Marie, and thus we first
became acquainted with the habits of infant fishes, and learned
something of their needs and the methods of their foster-parents._
_One after another our neighbors introduced themselves, each in his own
way. And they were good neighbors, all of them. Even the porcupines and
the skunks were interesting--in their peculiar fashion--and I wish there
were none worse than they in the city's slums._
_I have said good-by to the Glimmerglass, and it may be that I shall
never again make my home by its shores. But the life of the woods goes
on, and will still go on as long as man will let it. I suppose that,
even as I write, the bears are "holeing up" for the winter, and the deer
are growing anxious because the snow is covering the best of their food,
and they of the cat tribe are getting down to business, and hunting in
deadly earnest. The loons and the ducks have pulled out for the Gulf of
Mexico, and the squirrels are glad that they have such a goodly store of
nuts laid up for the next four months. The beavers have retired to their
lodges--that is, if Charley Roop and his fellows have left any of them
alive. The partridges--well, the partridges will just have to get along
the best way they can. I guess they'll pull through somehow. The
porcupines are all right, as you will presently see if you read this
book. They don't have to worry. Down in the bed of the trout stream the
trout eggs are getting ready--getting ready. And out on the lake itself
the frost is at work, and the ice-sheet is forming, and under that cold,
white lid the Glimmerglass will wait till another year brings round
another spring-time--the spring-time that will surely come to all of us
if only we hold on long enough._
_Chicago, December, 1901._
THE BIOGRAPHY OF A BEAVER
A BROAD, flat tail came down on the water with a whack that sent the
echoes flying back and forth across the pond, and its owner ducked his
head, arched his back, and dived to the bottom. It was a very curious
tail, for besides being so oddly paddle-shaped it was covered with what
looked like scales, but were really sections and indentations of hard,
horny, blackish-gray skin. Except its owner's relations, there was no
one else in all the animal kingdom who had one like it. But the
strangest thing about it was the many different ways in which he used
it. Just now it was his rudder--and a very good rudder, too.
In a moment his little brown head reappeared, and he and his brothers
and sisters went chasing each other round and round the pond, ducking
and diving and splashing, raising such a commotion that they sent the
ripples washing all along the grassy shores, and having the jolliest
kind of a time. It isn't the usual thing for young beavers to be out in
broad daylight, but all this happened in the good old days before the
railways came, when northern Michigan was less infested with men than
it is now.
When the youngsters wanted a change they climbed up onto a log, and
nudged and hunched each other, poking their noses into one another's fat
little sides, and each trying to shove his brother or sister back into
the water. By and by they scrambled out on the bank, and then, when
their fur had dripped a little, they set to work to comb it. Up they sat
on their hind legs and tails--the tail was a stool now, you see--and
scratched their heads and shoulders with the long brown claws of their
small, black, hairy hands. Then the hind feet came up one at a time, and
combed and stroked their sides till the moisture was gone and the fur
was soft and smooth and glossy as velvet. After that they had to have
another romp. They were not half as graceful on land as they had been in
the water. In fact they were not graceful at all, and the way they stood
around on their hind legs, and shuffled, and pranced, and wheeled like
baby hippopotami, and slapped the ground with their tails, was one of
the funniest sights in the heart of the woods. And the funniest and
liveliest of them all was the one who owned that tail--the tail which,
when I last saw it, was lying on the ground in front of Charlie Roop's
shack. He was the one whom I shall call the Beaver--with a big B.
But even young beavers will sometimes grow tired of play, and at last
they all lay down on the grass in the warm, quiet sunshine of the autumn
afternoon. The wind had gone to sleep, the pond glittered like steel in
its bed of grassy beaver-meadow, the friendly woods stood guard all
around, the enemy was far away, and it was a very good time for five
furry little babies to take a nap.
The city in which the tail first made its appearance was a very ancient
one, and may have been the oldest town on the North American continent.
Nobody knows when the first stick was laid in the dam that changed a
small natural pond into a large artificial one, and thus opened the way
for further municipal improvements; but it was probably centuries ago,
and for all we can tell it may have been thousands of years back in the
past. Generation after generation of beavers had worked on that dam,
building it a little higher and a little higher, a little longer and a
little longer, year after year; and raising their lodges as the pond
rose around them. Theirs was a maritime city, for most of its streets
were of water, like those of Venice; rich cargoes of food-stuffs came
floating to its very doors, and they themselves were navigators from
their earliest youth, and took to the water as naturally as ducks or
Englishmen. They were lumbermen, too, and when the timber was all cut
from along the shores of the pond they dug canals across the low, level,
marshy ground, back to the higher land where the birch and the poplar
still grew, and floated the branches and the smaller logs down the
artificial water-ways. And there were land roads, as well as canals, for
here and there narrow trails crossed the swamp, showing where
generations of busy workers had passed back and forth between the felled
tree and the water's edge. Streets, canals, public works, dwellings,
commerce, lumbering, rich stores laid up for the winter--what more do
you want to constitute a city, even if the houses are few in number, and
the population somewhat smaller than that of London or New York?
[Illustration: "_On the grass in the warm, quiet sunshine of an autumn
afternoon._"]
There was a time, not very long before the Beaver was born, when for a
few years the city was deserted. The trappers had swept through the
country, and the citizens' skulls had been hung up on the bushes, while
their skins went to the great London fur market. Few were left alive,
and those few were driven from their homes and scattered through the
woods. The trappers decided that the ground was worked out, and most of
them pushed on to the north and west in search of regions not yet
depopulated. Then, one by one, the beavers came back to their old
haunts. The broken dam was repaired; new lodges were built, and new
beavers born in them; and again the ancient town was alive with the play
of the babies and the labors of the civil engineers. Not as populous,
perhaps, as it had once been, but alive, and busy, and happy. And so it
was when our Beaver came into the world.
The first year of his life was an easy one, especially the winter, when
there was little for anyone to do except to eat, to sleep, and now and
then to fish for the roots of the yellow water-lily in the soft mud at
the bottom of the pond. During that season he probably accomplished more
than his parents did, for if he could not toil he could at least grow.
Of course they may have been growing, too, but it was less noticeable in
them than in him. Not only was he increasing in size and weight, but he
was storing up strength and strenuousness for the work that lay before
him. It would take much muscle to force those long yellow teeth of his
through the hard, tough flesh of the maple or the birch or the poplar.
It would take vigor and push and enterprise to roll the heavy billets
of wood over the grass-tufts to the edge of the water. And, most of all,
it would take strength and nerve and determination to tear himself away
from a steel trap and leave a foot behind. So it was well for the
youngster that for a time he had nothing to do but grow.
Spring came at last, and many of the male beavers prepared to leave home
for a while. The ladies seemed to prefer not to be bothered by the
presence of men-folk during the earliest infancy of the children; so the
men, probably nothing loath, took advantage of the opportunity to see
something of the world, wandering by night up and down the streams, and
hiding by day in burrows under the banks. For a time they enjoyed it,
but as the summer dragged by they came straggling home one after
another. The new babies who had arrived in their absence had passed the
most troublesome age, and it was time to begin work again. The dam and
the lodges needed repairs, and there was much food to be gathered and
laid up for the coming winter.
Now, on a dark autumn night, behold the young Beaver toiling with might
and main. His parents have felled a tree, and it is his business to help
them cut up the best portions and carry them home. He gnaws off a small
branch, seizes the butt end between his teeth, swings it over his
shoulder, and makes for the water, keeping his head twisted around to
the right or left so that the end of the branch may trail on the ground
behind him. Sometimes he even rises on his hind legs, and walks almost
upright, with his broad, strong tail for a prop to keep him from tipping
over backward if his load happens to catch on something. Arrived at the
canal or at the edge of the pond, he jumps in and swims for town, still
carrying the branch over his shoulder, and finally leaves it on the
growing pile in front of his father's lodge. Or perhaps the stick is too
large and too heavy to be carried in such a way. In that case it must be
cut into short billets and rolled, as a cant-hook man rolls a log down a
skidway. Only the Beaver has no cant-hook to help him, and no skidway,
either. All he can do is to push with all his might, and there are so
many, many grass-tufts and little hillocks in the way! And sometimes the
billet rolls down into a hollow, and then it is very hard to get it out
again. He works like a beaver, and pushes and shoves and toils with
tremendous energy, but I am afraid that more than one choice stick never
reaches the water.
These were his first tasks. Later on he learned to fell trees himself.
Standing up on his hind legs and tail, with his hands braced against the
trunk, he would hold his head sidewise, open his mouth wide, set his
teeth against the bark, and bring his jaws together with a savage nip
that left a deep gash in the side of the tree. A second nip deepened the
gash, and gave it more of a downward slant, and two or three more
carried it still farther into the tough wood. Then he would choose a new
spot a little farther down, and start a second gash, which was made to
slant up toward the first. And when he thought that they were both deep
enough he would set his teeth firmly in the wood between them, and pull
and jerk and twist at it until he had wrenched out a chip--a chip
perhaps two inches long, and from an eighth to a quarter of an inch
thick. He would make bigger ones when he grew to be bigger himself, but
you mustn't expect too much at first. Chip after chip was torn out in
this way, and gradually he would work around the tree until he had
completely encircled it. Then the groove was made deeper, and after a
while it would have to be broadened so that he could get his head
farther into it. He seemed to think it was of immense importance to get
the job done as quickly as possible, for he worked away with tremendous
energy and eagerness, as if felling that tree was the only thing in the
world that was worth doing. Once in a while he would pause for a moment
to feel of it with his hands, and to glance up at the top to see whether
it was getting ready to fall, and several times he stopped long enough
to take a refreshing dip in the pond; but he always hurried back, and
pitched in again harder than ever. In fact, he sometimes went at it so
impetuously that he slipped and rolled over on his back. Little by
little he dug away the tree's flesh until there was nothing left but its
heart, and at last it began to crack and rend. The Beaver jumped aside
to get out of the way, and hundreds and hundreds of small, tender
branches, and delicious little twigs and buds came crashing down where
he could cut them off and eat them or carry them away at his leisure.
And so the citizens labored, and their labor brought its rich reward,
and everybody was busy and contented, and life was decidedly worth
living.
But one black November night our hero's father, the wisest old beaver in
all the town, went out to his work and never came home again. A trapper
had found the rebuilt city--a scientific trapper who had studied his
profession for years, and who knew just how to go to work. He kept away
from the lodges as long as he could, so as not to frighten anyone; and
before he set a single trap he looked the ground over very carefully,
located the different trails that ran back from the water's edge toward
the timber, visited the stumps of the felled trees, and paid particular
attention to the tooth-marks on the chips. No two beavers leave marks
that are exactly alike. The teeth of one are flatter or rounder than
those of another, while a third has large or small nicks in the edges of
his yellow chisels; and each tooth leaves its own peculiar signature
behind it. By noting all these things the trapper concluded that a
particular runway in the wet, grassy margin of the pond was the one by
which a certain old beaver always left the water in going to his night's
labor. That beaver, he decided, would best be the first one taken, for
he was probably the head of a family, and an elderly person of much
wisdom and experience; and if one of his children should be caught first
he might become alarmed, and take the lead in a general exodus.
So the trapper set a heavy double-spring trap in the edge of the water
at the foot of the runway, and covered it with a thin sheet of moss.
And that night, as the old beaver came swimming up to the shore, he put
his foot down where he shouldn't, and two steel jaws flew up and clasped
him around the thigh. He had felt that grip before. Was not half of his
right hand gone, and three toes from his left hind foot? But this was a
far more serious matter than either of those adventures. It was not a
hand that was caught this time, nor yet a toe, or toes. It was his right
hind leg, well up toward his body, and the strongest beaver that ever
lived could not have pulled himself free. Now when a beaver is
frightened, he of course makes for deep water. There, he thinks, no
enemy can follow him; and, what is more, it is the highway to his lodge,
and to the burrow that he has hollowed in the bank for a refuge in case
his house should be attacked. So this beaver turned and jumped back into
the water the way he had come; but, alas! he took his enemy with him.
The heavy trap dragged him to the bottom like a stone, and the short
chain fastened to a stake kept him from going very far toward home. For
a few minutes he struggled with all his might, and the soft black mud
rose about him in inky clouds. Then he quieted down and lay very, very
still; and the next day the trapper came along and pulled him out by
the chain.
Something else happened the same night. Another wise old beaver, the
head man of another lodge, was killed by a falling tree. He ought to
have known better than to let such a thing happen. I really don't see
how he could have been so careless. But the best of us will make
mistakes at times, and any pitcher may go once too often to the well. I
suppose that he had felled hundreds of trees and bushes, big and little,
in the course of his life, and he had never yet met with an accident;
but this time he thought he would take one more bite after the tree had
really begun to fall. So he thrust his head again into the narrowing
notch, and the wooden jaws closed upon him with a nip that was worse
than his own. He tried to draw back, but it was too late, his skull
crashed in, and his life went out like a candle.
And so, in a few hours, the city lost two of its best citizens--the very
two whom it could least afford to lose. If they had been spared they
might, perhaps, have known enough to scent the coming danger, and to
lead their families and neighbors away from the doomed town, deeper into
the heart of the wilderness. As it was, the trapper had things all his
own way, and by working carefully and cautiously he added skin after
skin to his store of beaver-pelts. I haven't time to tell you of all the
different ways in which he set his traps, nor can we stop to talk of the
various baits that he used, from castoreum to fresh sticks of birch or
willow, or of those other traps, still more artfully arranged, which had
no bait at all, but were cunningly hidden where the poor beavers would
be almost certain to step into them before they saw them. After all, it
was his awful success that mattered, rather than the way in which he
achieved it. Our friend's mother was one of the next to go, and the way
his brothers and sisters disappeared one after another was a thing to
break one's heart.
One night the Beaver himself came swimming down the pond, homeward
bound, and as he dived and approached the submarine entrance of the
lodge he noticed some stakes driven into the mud--stakes that had never
been there before. They seemed to form two rows, one on each side of his
course, but as there was room enough for him to pass between them he
swam straight ahead without stopping. His hands had no webs between the
fingers, and were of little use in swimming, so he had folded them back
against his body; but his big feet were working like the wheels of a
twin-screw steamer, and he was forging along at a great rate. Suddenly,
half-way down the lines of stakes, his breast touched the pan of a steel
trap, and the jaws flew up quick as a wink and strong as a vise.
Fortunately there was nothing that they could take hold of. They struck
him so hard that they lifted him bodily upward, but they caught only a
few hairs.
Even a scientific trapper may sometimes make mistakes, and when this one
came around to visit his trap, and found it sprung but empty, he thought
that the beavers must have learned its secret and sprung it on purpose.
There was no use, he decided, in trying to catch such intelligent
animals in their own doorway, and he took the trap up and set it in a
more out-of-the-way place. And so one source of danger was removed, just
because the Beaver was lucky enough to touch the pan with his breast
instead of with a foot.
A week later he was really caught by his right hand, and met with one of
the most thrilling adventures of his life. Oh, but that was a glorious
night! Dark as a pocket, no wind, thick black clouds overhead, and the
rain coming down in a steady, steady drizzles--just the kind of a night
that the beavers love, when the friendly darkness shuts their little
city in from all the rest of the world, and when they feel safe and
secure. Then, how the long yellow teeth gouge and tear at the tough
wood, how the trees come tumbling down, and how the branches and the
little logs come hurrying in to augment the winter food-piles! Often of
late the Beaver had noticed an unpleasant odor along the shores, an odor
that frightened him and made him very uneasy, but to-night the rain had
washed it all away, and the woods smelled as sweet and clean as if God
had just made them over new. And on this night, of all others, the
Beaver put his hand squarely into a steel trap.
He was in a shallow portion of the pond, and the chain was too short for
him to reach water deep enough to drown him; but now a new danger
appeared, for there on the low, mossy bank was an otter, glaring at him
through the darkness. Beaver-meat makes a very acceptable meal for an
otter, and the Beaver knew it. And he knew, also, how utterly helpless
he was, either to fly or to resist, with that heavy trap on his arm, and
its chain binding him to the stake. His heart sank like lead, and he
trembled from his nose to the end of his tail, and whimpered and cried
like a baby. But, strange to say, it was the trapper who saved him,
though, of course, it was done quite unintentionally. As the otter
advanced to the attack there came a sudden sharp click, and in another
second he too was struggling for dear life. Two traps had been set in
the shallow water. The Beaver had found one, and the otter the other.
The full story of that night, with all its details of fear and suffering
and pain, will never be written; and probably it is as well that it
should not be. But I can give you a few of the facts, if you care to
hear them. The Beaver soon found that he was out of the otter's reach,
and with his fears relieved on that point he set to work to free himself
from the trap. Round and round he twisted, till there came a little
snap, and the bone of his arm broke short off in the steel jaws. Then
for a long, long time he pulled and pulled with all his might, and at
last the tough skin was rent apart, and the muscles and sinews were torn
out by the roots. His right hand was gone, and he was so weak and faint
that it seemed as if all the strength and life of his whole body had
gone with it. No matter. He was free, and he swam away to the nearest
burrow and lay down to rest. The otter tried to do the same, but he was
caught by the thick of his thigh, and his case was a hopeless one. Next
day the trapper found him alive, but very meek and quiet, worn out with
fear and useless struggles. In the other trap were a beaver's hand and
some long shreds of flesh and sinew that must once have reached well up
into the shoulder.
We shall have to hurry over the events of the next winter--the last
winter in the city's history. By the time the Beaver's wound was
healed--Nature was good to him, and the skin soon grew over the torn
stump--the pond was covered with ice. The beavers, only half as numerous
as they had been a few weeks before, kept close in their lodges and
burrows, and for a time they lived in peace and quiet, and their numbers
suffered no further diminution. Then the trapper took to setting his
traps through the ice, and before long matters were worse than ever. By
spring the few beavers that remained were so thoroughly frightened that
the ancient town was again abandoned--this time forever. The lodges fell
to ruins, the burrows caved in, the dam gave way, the pond and canals
were drained, and that was the end of the city.
Yet not quite the end, after all. The beavers have vanished from their
old habitation, but their work remains in the broad meadows cleared of
timber by their teeth, and covered with rich black soil by the
inundations from their dam. There is an Indian legend which says that
after the Creator separated the land from the water He employed gigantic
beavers to smooth it down and prepare it for the abode of men. However
that may be, the farmers of generations to come will have reason to rise
up and bless those busy little citizens--but I don't suppose they will
ever do it.
One city was gone, but there were two that could claim the honor of
being our Beaver's home at different periods of his life. The first, as
we have already seen, was ancient and historic. The second was
brand-new. Let us see how it had its beginning. The Beaver got married
about the time he left his old home; and this, by the way, is a very
good thing to do when you want to start a new town. Except for his
missing hand, his wife was so like him that it would have puzzled you to
tell which was which. I think it is very likely that she was his twin
sister, but of course that's none of our business. Do you want to know
what they looked like? They measured about three feet six inches from
tip of nose to tip of tail, and they weighed perhaps thirty pounds
apiece. Their bodies were heavy and clumsy, and were covered with thick,
soft, grayish under-fur, which in turn was overlaid with longer hairs of
a glistening chestnut-brown, making a coat that was thoroughly
water-proof as well as very beautiful. Their heads were somewhat like
those of gigantic rats, with small, light-brown eyes, little round ears
covered with hair, and long orange-colored incisors looking out from
between parted lips. One portrait will answer for both of them.
They wandered about for some time, looking for a suitable location, and
examining several spots along the beds of various little rivers, none of
which seemed to be just right. But at last they found, in the very heart
of the wilderness, a place where a shallow stream ran over a hard stony
bottom, and here they set to work. It was a very desirable situation in
every respect. At one side stood a large tree, so close that it could
probably be used as a buttress for the dam when the latter was
sufficiently lengthened to reach it; while above the shallow the ground
was low and flat on both sides for some distance back from the banks, so
that the pond would have plenty of room to spread out. If they could
have spoken they would probably have said that the place was a dam site
better than any other they had seen.
[Illustration: _Building the Dam._]
Alder bushes laid lengthwise of the current were the first materials
used, and for a time the water filtered through them with hardly a
pause. Then the beavers began laying mud and stones and moss on this
brush foundation, scooping them up with their hands, and holding them
under their chins as they waddled or swam to the dam. The Beaver himself
was not very good at this sort of work, for his right hand was gone, as
we know, and it was not easy for him to carry things; but he did the
best he could, and together they accomplished a great deal. The mud and
the grass and such-like materials were deposited mainly on the upper
face of the dam, where the pressure of the water only sufficed to drive
them tighter in among the brush; and thus, little by little, a smooth
bank of earth was presented to the current, backed up on the lower side
by a tangle of sticks and poles. Its top was very level and straight,
and along its whole length the water trickled over in a succession of
tiny rills. This was important, for if all the overflow had been in one
place the stream might have been so strong and rapid as to eat into
the dam, and perhaps carry away the whole structure.
The first year the beavers did not try to raise the stream more than a
foot above its original level. There was much other work to be done--a
house to be built, and food to be laid in for the winter--and if they
spent too much time on the dam they might freeze or starve before
spring. A few rods up-stream was a grassy point which the rising waters
had transformed into an island, and here they built their lodge, a
hollow mound of sticks and mud, with a small, cave-like chamber in the
centre, from which two tunnels led out under the pond--"angles," the
trappers call them. The walls were masses of earth and wood and stones,
so thick and solid that even a man with an axe would have found it
difficult to penetrate them. Only at the very apex of the mound there
was no mud, nothing but tangled sticks through which a breath of fresh
air found its way now and then. In spite of this feeble attempt at
ventilation I am obliged to admit that the atmosphere of the lodge was
often a good deal like that of the Black Hole of Calcutta, but beavers
are so constituted that they do not need much oxygen, and they did not
seem to mind it. In all other respects the house was neat and clean.
The floor was only two or three inches above the level of the water in
the angles, and would naturally have been a bed of mud; but they mixed
little twigs with it, and stamped and pounded it down till it was hard
and smooth. I think likely the Beaver's tail had something to do with
this part of the work, as well as with finishing off the dam, for he was
fond of slapping things with it, and it was just the right shape for
such use. In fact, I fear that if it had not been for the tail, and for
other tails like it, neither of the cities would ever have been as
complete as they were. With the ends of projecting sticks cut off to
leave the walls even and regular, and with long grass carried in to make
the beds, the lodge was finished and ready.
And now you might have seen the beavers coming home to rest after a
night's labor at felling timber--swimming across the pond toward the
island, with only the tops of their two little heads showing above the
water. In front of the lodge each tail-rudder gives a slap and a twist,
and they dive for the submarine door of one of the angles. In another
second they are swimming along the dark, narrow tunnel, making the water
surge around them. Suddenly the roof of the passage rises, and their
heads pop up into the air. A yard or two farther, and they enter the
chamber of the lodge, with its level floor and its low, arched roof. And
there in the darkness they lie down on their grass beds and go to sleep.
It is good to have a home of your own where you may take your ease when
the night's work is done.
Near the upper end of the pond, where the bank was higher, they dug a
long burrow, running back ten or fifteen feet into the ground. This was
to be the last resort if, by any possibility, the lodge should ever be
invaded. It was a weary task, digging that burrow, for its mouth was
deep under the water, and every few minutes they had to stop work and
come to the surface for breath. Night after night they scooped and
shovelled, rushing the job as fast as they knew how, but making pretty
slow progress in spite of all their efforts. It was done at last,
however, and they felt easier in their minds when they knew that it was
ready for use in case of necessity. From its mouth in the depths of the
pond it sloped gradually upward to a dry chamber under the roots of a
large birch; and here, where a few tiny holes were not likely to be
noticed from the outside, two or three small openings, almost hidden by
the moss and dead leaves, let in the air and an occasional ray of
light. The big tree made a solid roof overhead, and the chamber was
large enough, with a little crowding, to accommodate a whole family of
beavers.
There was only one other heavy task, and that was the gathering of the
wood, which, with its bark, was to serve as food through the winter.
This too was finally finished, and the very last things that the beavers
did that fall were to put another coat of mud on the outside of the
lodge, and to see that the dam was in the best possible condition. No
repairing could be done after the ice made; and if the dam should give
way at any time during the winter, the pond would be drained, and the
entrances of the lodge and the burrow would be thrown open to any
prowling marauders that might happen to pass that way. So it was
imperative to have things in good order before cold weather came on.
There came a quiet, windless day, when the sky was gray, and when the
big snow-flakes came floating lazily down, some to lose themselves in
the black water, and some to robe the woods and the shores in white. At
nightfall the clouds broke up, the stars shone forth, and the air grew
odder and keener till long crystal spears shot out across the pond, and
before morning a sheet of glass had spread from shore to shore. I do not
think it was unwelcome. The beavers were shut in for the winter, or
could only go abroad with considerable difficulty, but they had each
other, and there was a little world of their own down under the ice and
snow. The chamber of the lodge was home, and just outside was their food
storehouse--the big pile of wood which it had cost so much labor to
gather. One of the entrances was shorter and straighter than the other,
and through this they used to bring in sticks from the heap, and lay
them on the floor between the beds, where they could devour the bark at
their leisure. If they grew restless, and wanted to go farther afield,
there was the bottom of the pond to be explored, and the big luscious
lily-roots to be dug up for a change of diet. It was a peaceful time, a
time of rest from the labors of the past year, and of growing fat and
strong for those of the year to come. We have much goods laid up for
many months; let us eat, drink, and be merry, and hope that the trappers
will not come to-morrow.
The babies came in May, and I suppose that the young father and mother
were almost as proud and happy as some of you who are in similar
circumstances. The Beaver did not wander very far from home that spring
and summer, nor was he away very long at a time.
There were five of the children, and they were very pretty--about as
large as rats, and covered with thick, soft, silky, reddish-brown fur,
but without any of the longer, coarser, chestnut-colored hairs that
formed their parents' outer coats. They were very playful, too, as the
father and mother had been in their own youthful days. For a while they
had to be nursed, like other babies; but by and by the old beavers began
to bring in little twigs for them, about the size of lead-pencils; and
if you had been there, and your eyes had been sharp enough to pierce the
gloom, you might have seen the youngsters exercising their brand new
teeth, and learning to sit up and hold sticks in their baby hands while
they ate the bark. And wouldn't you have liked to be present on the
night when they first went swimming down the long, dark tunnel; and,
rising to the surface, looked around on their world of woods and
water--on the quiet pond, with its glassy smoothness broken only by
their own ripples; on the tall trees, lifting their fingers toward the
sky; and on the stars, marching silently across the heavens, and looking
down with still, unwinking eyes on another family of babies that had
come to live and love and be happy for a little while on God's earth?
One of the children was killed by an otter before the summer was over,
but I am glad to say that the other four grew up and were a credit to
their parents.
The babies were not the only addition to the new city during that year,
for about mid-summer another pair of beavers came and built a lodge near
the upper end of the pond. It was a busy season for everybody--for our
old friends as well as for the new-comers. The food-sticks which had
been peeled off their bark during the winter furnished a good supply of
construction material, and the dam was built up several inches higher,
and was lengthened to the buttress-tree on one side, and for a distance
of two or three rods on the other, so as to keep the water from flowing
around the ends. As the water-level rose it became necessary to build up
the floor of the lodge in order to keep it from being flooded; and that,
in turn, necessitated raising the roof by the simple process of
hollowing it out from within and adding more material on the outside. In
the same way the lodge was made both longer and broader, to accommodate
the growing family and the still further increase that was to be
expected the following spring. More burrows were dug in the shore of
the pond--you can't have too many of them--and a much larger stock of
food wood was gathered, for there were six mouths, instead of two, to be
fed through the coming winter. The father and mother worked very hard,
and even the babies helped with the lighter tasks, such as carrying home
small branches, and mending little leaks in the dam. The second pair of
beavers was also busy with lodge and burrow and storehouse, and so the
days slipped by very rapidly.
Only once that year did a man come to town, and then he did not do
anything very dreadful. He was not a trapper, he was only an amateur
naturalist who wanted to see the beavers at their work, and who thought
he was smart enough to catch them at it. His plan was simple enough; he
made a breach in the dam one night, and then climbed a tree and waited
for them to come and mend it. It was bright moonlight, and he thought he
would see the whole thing and learn some wonderful secrets.
The Beaver was at work in the woods not very far away, and presently he
came down to the edge of the pond, rolling a heavy birch cutting before
him. He noticed at once that the water was falling, and he started
straight for the dam to see what was the matter. The amateur naturalist
saw him coming, a dark speck moving swiftly down the pond, with a long
V-shaped ripple spreading out behind him like the flanks of a flock of
wild geese. But the beaver was doing some thinking while he swam. He had
never before known the water to fall so suddenly and rapidly; there must
be a very bad break in the dam. How could it have happened? It looked
suspicious. It looked very suspicious indeed; and just before he reached
the dam he stopped to reconnoitre, and at once caught sight of the
naturalist up in the tree. His tail rose in the air and came down with
the loudest whack that had ever echoed across the pond, a stroke that
sent the spray flying in every direction, and that might have been heard
three-quarters of a mile away. His wife heard it, and paused in her work
of felling a tree; the children heard it, and the neighbors heard it;
and they all knew it meant business. The Beaver dived like a loon and
swam for dear life, and he did not come to the surface again till he had
reached the farther end of the pond and was out of sight behind a grassy
point. There he stayed, now and then striking the water with his tail
as a signal that the danger was not yet over. It isn't every animal that
can use his caudal appendage as a stool, as a rudder, as a third hind
leg, as a trowel for smoothing the floor of his house, and as a tocsin
for alarming his fellow-citizens.
The naturalist roosted in the tree till his teeth were chattering and he
was fairly blue with cold, and then he scrambled down and went back to
his camp, where he had a violent chill. The next night it rained, and as
he did not want to get wet there was nothing to do but stay in his tent.
When he visited the pond again the dam had been repaired and the water
was up to its usual level. He decided that watching beavers wasn't very
interesting, hardly worth the trouble it cost; and he guessed he knew
enough about them, anyhow. So the next day he packed up his camping
outfit and went home.
In the following year the population was increased to eighteen, for six
more babies arrived in our Beaver's lodge, and four in his neighbors'.
In another twelvemonth the first four were old enough to build lodges
and found homes of their own; and so the city grew, and our Beaver and
his wife were the original inhabitants, the first settlers, the most
looked-up-to of all the citizens. You are not to suppose, however, that
the Beaver was mayor of the town. There was no city government. The
family was the unit, and each household was a law unto itself. But that
did not keep him from being the oldest, the wisest, the most knowing of
all the beavers in the community, just as his father had been before him
in another town.
I don't believe you care to hear all about the years that followed. They
were years of peace and growth, of marriages and homebuilding, of many
births and a few deaths, of winter rest and summer labor, and of quiet
domestic happiness. There was little excitement, and, best of all, there
were no trappers. The time came when the Beaver might well say, as he
looked around on the community which he and his wife had founded, that
he was a citizen of no mean city.
But this could not last. A great calamity was coming--a calamity beside
which the slow destruction of the former town would seem tame and
uninteresting.
One bright February day the Beaver and his wife left their lodge to look
for lily-roots. They had found a big fat one and were just about to
begin their feast, when they heard foot-steps on the ice over their
heads, and the voices of several men talking eagerly. They made for the
nearest burrow as fast as they could go, and stayed there the rest of
the day, and when they returned to their lodge they found--but I'm going
too fast.