their discovery. Around this pond there must be enough beaver-skins to
keep them in groceries and tobacco and whiskey for a long time to come.
But to find a city is one thing, and to get hold of its inhabitants is
another and a very different one. One of the Indians was an elderly man
who in the old days had trapped beaver in Canada for the Hudson Bay
Company, and he assumed the direction of the work. First of all they
chopped holes in the ice and drove a line of stakes across the stream
just above the pond, so that no one might escape in that direction.
Then, by pounding on the ice, and cutting more holes in it here and
there, they found the entrances to all the lodges and most of the
burrows, and closed them also with stakes driven into the bottom.
Fortunately they did not find the burrow where our Beaver and his wife
had taken refuge. They were about to break open the roofs of the lodges
when the old man proposed that they should play a trick on one of the
beaver families--a trick which his father had taught him when he was a
boy, and when the beavers were many in the woods around Lake Superior.
He described it with enthusiasm, and his companions agreed that it would
be great fun. For a time there was much chopping of ice and driving of
stakes, and then all was quiet again.
By and by one of our Beaver's children began to feel hungry, and as his
father and mother had not come home he decided to go out to the
wood-pile and get something to eat. So he took a header from his bed
into the water, and swam down the angle. The door had been unbarred
again, and he passed out without difficulty, but when he reached the
pile he found it surrounded by a fence made of stakes set so close
together that he could not pass between them. He swam clear around it,
and at last found one gap just wide enough to admit his body. He passed
in, and as he did so his back grazed a small twig which had been thrust
down through a hole in the ice, and the watching Indians saw it move,
and knew that a beaver had entered the trap. He picked out a nice stick
of convenient size, and started to return to the lodge. But where was
that gap in the fence? This was the place, he was sure. Here were two
stakes between which he had certainly passed as he came in, but now
another stood squarely between them, and the gate was barred. He swam
all round the wood-pile, looking for a way out, and poking his little
brown nose between the stakes, but there was no escape, and when he came
back to the entrance and found it still closed his last hope died, and
he gave up in despair. His heart and lungs and all his circulatory
apparatus had been so designed by the Great Architect that he might live
for many minutes under water, but they could not keep him alive
indefinitely. Overhead was the ice, and all around was that cruel fence.
Only a rod away was home, where his brothers and sisters were waiting
for him, and where there was air to breathe and life to live--but he
could not reach it. You have all read or heard how a drowning man feels,
and I suppose it is much the same with a drowning beaver. They say it is
an easy death.
By and by a hooked stick came down through a hole in the ice and drew
him out, the gate was unbarred, the twig was replaced, and the Indians
waited for another hungry little beaver to come for his dinner. That's
enough. You know now what the parents found when they came home--or
rather what they didn't find.
It would have taken too long to dispose of the whole city in this way,
so the Indians finally broke the dam and let the water out of the pond,
and then they tore open the lodges and all the burrows they could find,
and the inhabitants were put to the--not the sword, but the axe and the
club. Of all those who had been so happy and prosperous, the old Beaver
and his wife were the only ones who escaped; and their lives were spared
only because the Indians failed to find their hiding-place.
That was the end of the second city, but it was not quite the end of the
beavers. A few miles up-stream they dug a short burrow in the bank and
tried to make a new home. In May another baby came, but only one, and it
was dead before it was born. Next day the mother died too, and the
Beaver left the burrow and went out into the world alone. I really think
his heart was broken, though it continued to beat for several months
longer.
Just northeast of the Glimmerglass there lies a long, narrow pond, whose
shores are very low and swampy, and whose waters drain into the larger
lake through a short stream only a few rods in length. Hundreds,
perhaps thousands, of years ago the narrow strip of land that separates
them may possibly have been a beaver-dam, but to-day it is hard to tell
it from one of Nature's own formations. In the course of his lonely
wanderings the Beaver reached this pond, and here he established himself
to spend his last few weeks. He was aging rapidly. Such a little while
ago he had seemed in the very prime of life, and had been one of the
handsomest beavers in the woods, with fur of the thickest and softest
and silkiest, and a weight of probably sixty pounds. Now he was thin and
lean, his hair was falling out, his teeth were losing their sharp edges
and becoming blunt and almost useless, and even his flat tail was
growing thicker and more rounded, and its whack was not as startling as
of old when he brought it down with all his might on the surface of the
water.
Yet even now the old instinct flamed up and burned feebly for a little
while. Or shall we say the old love of work, and of using the powers and
faculties that God had given him? Why should the thing that is called
genius in a man be set down as instinct when we see it on a somewhat
smaller scale in an animal? Whatever it was, the ruling passion was
still strong. All his life he had been a civil engineer; and now, one
dark, rainy autumn night, he left his shallow burrow, swam down the pond
to its outlet, and began to build a dam. The next day, pushing up the
shallow stream in my dug-out canoe, I saw the alder-cuttings lying in
its bed, with the marks of his dull teeth on their butts. God knows why
he did it, or what he was thinking about as he cut those bushes and
dragged them into the water. I don't; but sometimes I wonder if a wild
dream of a new lodge, a new mate, a new home, and a new city was
flitting through his poor, befogged old brain.
It was only a few nights later that he put his foot into Charlie Roop's
beaver-trap, jumped for deep water, and was drowned like his father
before him. Charlie afterward showed me the pelt, which he had stretched
on a hoop made of a little birch sapling. It was not a very good pelt,
for, as I said, the Beaver had been losing his hair, but Charlie thought
he might get a dollar or two for it. Whether he needed the dollar more
than the Beaver needed his skin was a question which it seemed quite
useless to discuss.
As we left the shack I noticed the tail lying on the ground just outside
the door.
"Why don't you eat it?" I asked. "Don't you know that a beaver's tail is
supposed to be one of the finest delicacies in the woods?"
"Huh!" said Charlie. "I'd rather have salt pork."
THE KING OF THE TROUT STREAM
IT was winter, and the trout stream ran low in its banks, hidden from
the sky by a thick shell of ice and snow, and not seeing the sun for a
season. But the trout stream was used to that, and it slipped along in
the darkness, undismayed and not one whit disheartened; talking to
itself in low, murmuring tones, and dreaming of the time when spring
would come back and all the rivers would be full.
Mingled with its waters, and borne onward and downward by the ceaseless
flow of its current, went multitudes of the tiniest air-bubbles, most of
them too small ever to be seen by a human eye, yet large enough to be
the very breath of life to thousands and thousands of creatures. Some of
them found their way to the gills of the brook trout, and some to the
minnows, and the herrings, and the suckers, and the star-gazers; some
fed the little crustacea, and the insect larvæ, and the other tiny water
animals that make up the lower classes of society; and some passed
undetained down the river and out into Lake Superior. But there were
others that worked down into the gravel of the riverbed; and there, in
the nooks and crannies between the pebbles, they found a vast number of
little balls of yellow-brown jelly, about as large as small peas, which
seemed to be in need of their kindly ministrations. And the air-bubbles
touched the trout eggs gently and lovingly, and in some mysterious and
wonderful way their oxygen passed in through the pores of the shells,
and the embryos within were quickened and stirred to a new vigor and a
more rapid growth.
Not all of the eggs were alive. Some had been crushed between the
stones; some were buried in sediment, which had choked the pores and
kept away the friendly oxygen until they smothered; and some had never
really lived at all. But one danger they had been spared, for there were
no saw-mills on the stream to send a flood of fungus-breeding sawdust
down with the current. And in spite of all the misfortunes and disasters
to which trout eggs are liable, a goodly number of them were doing quite
as well as could be expected. I suppose one could hardly say that they
were being incubated, for, according to the dictionaries, to incubate is
to sit upon, and certainly there was no one sitting on them. Their
mothers had not come near them since the day they were laid. But the
gravel hid them from the eyes of egg-eating fishes and musk-rats; the
water kept them cold, but not too cold; the fresh oxygen came and
encouraged them if ever they grew tired and dull, and so the good work
went on.
Through each thin, leathery, semi-transparent shell you could have seen,
if you had examined it closely, a pair of bright, beady eyes, and a dark
little thread of a backbone that was always curled up like a horseshoe
because there wasn't room for it to lie straight. But along the outside
of the curve of each spinal column a set of the tiniest and daintiest
muscles was getting ready for a long pull, and a strong pull, and a pull
all together. And one day, late in the winter, when the woods were just
beginning to think about spring, the muscles in one particular egg
tugged with all their little might, the backbone straightened with a
great effort, the shell was ripped open, and the tail of a brand-new
brook trout thrust itself out into the water and wiggled pathetically.
But his head and shoulders were still inside, and for a while it looked
as if he would never get them free. His tail was shaped somewhat like a
paddle set on edge, for a long, narrow fin ran from the middle of his
back clear around the end of it and forward again on the under side of
his body, and with this for an oar he struggled and writhed and
squirmed, and went bumping blindly about among the pebbles like a kitten
with its head in the cream pitcher. And at last, with the most vigorous
squirm and wriggle of all, he backed clear of the shell in which he had
lain for so many weeks and months, and, weak and weary from his
exertions, lay down on a stone to rest.
He had to lie on his side, for attached to his breast was a large,
round, transparent sac which looked very much like the egg out of which
he had just come. In fact it really was the egg, or at least a portion
of it, for it held a large part of what had been the yolk. If you could
have examined him with a microscope you would have seen a most strange
and beautiful thing. His little body was so delicate and transparent
that one could see the arteries pulsing and throbbing in time with the
beating of his heart, and some of those arteries found their way into
the food-sac, where they kept branching and dividing, and growing
smaller and more numerous. And in the very smallest of the tiny tubes a
wonderful process was going on--as wonderful as the way in which the
oxygen fed the embryos through the shell. Somehow, by life's marvellous
alchemy, the blood was laying hold of the material of the yolk, turning
it into more blood, and carrying it away to be used in building up bone
and muscle everywhere from the tip of his nose to the end of his tail.
You might not have detected the actual transformation, but you could
have seen the beating of the engine, and the throbbing rush of the
little red rivers, all toiling with might and main to make a big, strong
trout out of this weak and diminutive baby. And you could have seen the
corpuscles hurrying along so thick and fast that at times they blocked
up the passages, and the current was checked till the heart could bring
enough pressure to bear to burst the dam and send them rushing on again.
For the corpuscles of a trout's blood are considerably larger than those
of most fishes, and they sometimes get "hung up," like a drive of logs
sent down a stream hardly large enough to float it.
With a full haversack to be drawn upon in such a convenient manner the
Troutlet was not obliged to take food through his mouth or to think
about hustling around in search of a living. This was very fortunate,
for the stream was full of hungry beasts of prey who would be very
likely to gobble him up quick the first time he went abroad; and,
besides, his frail little body was still so weak and delicate that he
could not bear the light of day. So, instead of swimming away to seek
his fortune, he simply dived down deeper into the gravel, and stayed
there. For some weeks he led a very quiet life among the pebbles, and
the only mishap that befell him during that time was the direct result
of his retiring disposition. In his anxiety to get as far away from the
world as possible he one day wedged himself into a cranny so narrow that
he couldn't get out again. He couldn't even breathe, for his gill-covers
were squeezed down against the sides of his head as if he were in a
vise. A trout's method of respiration is to open his mouth and fill it
with water, and then to close it again and force the water out through
his gills, between his cheeks and his shoulders, about where his neck
would be if he had one. It's very simple when you once know how, but you
can't do it with your gill-covers clamped down. His tail wiggled more
pathetically than ever, and did its level best to pull him out, but
without success. He was wedged in so tightly that he couldn't move, and
he was fast smothering, like a baby that has rolled over on its face
upon the pillow. But at the last moment, when his struggles had grown
feebler and feebler until they had almost ceased, something stirred up
the gravel around him and set him free. He never knew what did it.
Perhaps a deer or a bear waded through the stream; or a saw-log may have
grounded for a moment in the shallow; or possibly it was only the
current, for by this time most of the snow had melted, and the little
river was working night and day to carry the water out of the woods. But
whatever it was, he was saved.
He stayed in the gravel nearly a month, but his yolk-sac was gradually
shrinking, and after a time it drew itself up into a little cleft in his
breast and almost disappeared. There was nothing left of it but a little
amber-colored bead, and it could no longer supply food enough for his
growing body. There were times when he felt decidedly hungry. And other
changes had come while he lay and waited in the gravel. The embryonic
fin which had made his tail so like a paddle was gone, the true dorsal
and caudal and anal fins had taken their proper shape, and he looked a
little less like a tadpole and a little more like a fish. He was
stronger than he had been at first, and he was losing his dread of the
sunlight; and so at last he left the gravel-bed, to seek his rightful
place in the world of moving, murmuring waters.
He was rather weak and listless at first, and quite given to resting in
the shallows and back water, and taking things as easily as possible.
But that was to be expected for a time, and he was much better off than
some of the other trout babies. He saw one that had two heads and only
one body, and another with two heads and two bodies joined together at
the tail. Still others there were who had never been strong enough to
straighten their backbones, and who had lain in the egg till the shell
wore thin and let them out head first, which is not at all the proper
way for a trout to hatch. Even now they still retained the horseshoe
curve, and could never swim straight ahead, but only spin round and
round like whirligigs. These cripples and weaklings seemed to have got
on pretty well as long as their food-sacs lasted, but now that they had
to make their own living they were at a serious disadvantage. They all
disappeared after a day or two, and our friend never saw them again.
They couldn't stand the real struggle of life.
Many a strong, healthy baby disappeared at the same time, and if there
had not been so many of them it is not likely that any would have
survived the first few days and weeks. Even as it was, I doubt if more
than one fish out of each thousand eggs ever lived to grow up. It is not
difficult to guess where they went. Our Trout had hardly emerged from
his hiding-place in the gravel when a queer, ugly, big-headed little
fish darted at him from under a stone, with his jaws open and an awful
cavity yawning behind them. The Troutlet dodged between a couple of
pebbles and escaped, but another youngster just beyond him was caught
and swallowed alive. That was his first meeting with the star-gazer, who
kills more babies than ever Herod did. Then there were minnows, and
herrings, and lizards, and frogs, and weasels, and water-snakes, and
other butchers of all sorts and sizes, too numerous to mention. And
perhaps the worst of all were the older trout, who never seemed to have
the least compunction about eating their small relations, and who were
so nimble and lively that it was almost impossible to keep out of their
way. Our friend spent most of his time in the shallow water near the
banks, where larger fishes were not so likely to follow him, but even
there he had many narrow escapes and was obliged to keep himself hidden
as much as possible under chips and dead leaves, and behind stones.
Often he found himself in great peril when he least suspected it. Once
he lay for some time in the edge of a dark forest of water-weeds, only
an inch from a lumpish, stupid-looking creature, half covered with mud,
that was clinging to one of the stems. The animal appeared so dull and
unintelligent that the young Trout paid little attention to him until
another baby came up and approached a trifle closer. Then, quick as a
flash, the creature shot out an arm nearly three-quarters of an inch
long, bearing on its end two horrible things which were not exactly
claws, nor fingers, nor teeth, but which partook of the nature of all
three, and which came together on the infant's soft, helpless little
body like a pair of tongs or the jaws of a steel trap, and drew him in
to where the real jaws were waiting to make mince-meat of him. Our
friend fled so precipitately that he did not see the end of the tragedy,
but neither did he ever see that baby again. Before the summer had
passed, the dull, lumpish-looking creature had become a magnificent
insect, with long, gauzy wings, clad in glittering mail, and known to
everybody as a dragon-fly, but I doubt if any of his performances in the
upper air were ever half as dragon-like as the deeds of darkness that he
did when he was an ugly, shapeless larva down under the water.
Fortunately, not all the larvæ in the stream were thus to be feared.
Many were so small that the Troutlet could eat them, instead of letting
them eat him; and nowhere were they more plentiful than in this same
forest of water-weeds. His first taste of food was a great experience,
and gave him some entirely new ideas of life. One day he was lying with
his head up-stream, as was his usual habit, when a particularly fat,
plump little larva, torn from his home by the remorseless river, came
drifting down with the current. He looked very tempting, and our friend
sallied out from under a stick and caught him on the fly, just as he had
seen the star-gazer catch his own brother. The funny little creature
wriggled deliciously on his tongue, and he held him between his jaws for
a moment in a kind of ecstasy; but he couldn't quite make up his mind to
swallow him, and presently he spat him out again and went back to the
shadow of his stick to rest and think about it. It was the first time in
his life that he had ever done such a thing, and he felt rather
overwhelmed, but an hour or two later he tried it again, and this time
the living morsel did not stop in his mouth, but went straight on down.
It was really something more than a new experience--this first mouthful
of food--for it marked a turning-point in his career. Up to this time he
had lived entirely on the provisions which his parents had left him, but
henceforth he was independent and could take care of himself. He was no
longer an embryo; he was a real fish, a genuine _Salvelinus fontinalis_,
as carnivorous as the biggest and fiercest of all his relations. The
cleft in his breast might close up now, and the last remnant of his
yolk-sac vanish forever. He was done with it. He had graduated from the
nursery, and had found his place on the battle-field of life.
It must be admitted, however, that he did not look much like a mature
trout, even now. He was less than three-quarters of an inch long, and
his big head, bulging eyes, and capacious mouth were out of all
proportion to his small and feeble body. But time and food were all
that was needed to set these matters right; and now that he had learned
how, he set to work and did his level best. I should be afraid to guess
how many tiny water-creatures, insects and larvæ and crustaceæ, found
their way down his throat, but it is pretty safe to say that he often
ate more than his own weight in a single day. And so he grew in size and
strength and symmetry, and from being a quiet, languid baby, always
hiding in dark corners, and attending strictly to his own affairs, he
became one of the liveliest and most inquisitive little fishes in all
the stream. To a certain extent he developed a fondness for travelling,
and in company with other troutlets of his own age and size he often
journeyed from place to place in search of new surroundings and new
things to eat. In fly-time he found a bountiful food-supply in the
mosquitoes and black-flies that swarmed over the stream, and it was fun
to see him leap from the water, catch one of them in his mouth, and drop
back with a triumphant little splash. It wasn't really very considerate
in him to prey on those biting, stinging flies, for in after years they
would be his best defenders against anglers and fishermen, but
consideration doesn't seem to be one of the strong points in a brook
trout's character.
It would take too long to tell of all his youthful doings during the
next year, and of all his narrow escapes, and the many tight places that
he got into and out of. It was a wonder that he ever pulled through at
all, but I suppose it is necessary that a few trout should grow up, for,
if they didn't, who would there be to eat the little ones?
Once a kingfisher dived for him, missed him by a hair's-breadth, and
flew back, scolding and chattering, to his perch on an old stub that
leaned far out over the water. And once he had a horrible vision of an
immense loon close behind him, with long neck stretched out, and huge
bill just ready to make the fatal grab. He dodged and got away, but it
frightened him about as badly as anything can frighten a creature with
no more nerves than a fish. And many other such adventures he had--too
many to enumerate. However, I don't think they ever troubled him very
much except for the moment. He grew more wary, no doubt, but he didn't
do much worrying. Somehow or other he always escaped by the skin of his
teeth, and the next spring he was swallowing the new crop of young fry
with as little concern as his older relations had shown in trying to
swallow him. So far he seemed to be one of the few who are foreordained
to eat and not be eaten, though it was more than likely that in the end
he, too, would die a violent death.
When he was about a year and a half old he noticed that all the larger
trout in the stream were gathering in places where the water was
shallow, the bottom pebbly, and the current rapid; and that they acted
as if they thought they had very important business on hand. He wanted
to do as the others did, and so it happened that he went back again to
the gravelly shallow where the air-bubbles had first found him. By this
time he was about as large as your finger, or possibly a trifle larger,
and he had all the bumptiousness of youth and was somewhat given to
pushing himself in where he wasn't wanted.