=Source.=--_Travels through the Canadas_, by George Heriot, Deputy
Postmaster-General of British North America. London, 1807.
The beavers associate in bands to the number of about an hundred
in each, and are supposed, by several who have witnessed their
economy, to possess a certain jargon, by means of which they
communicate their sentiments to each other. Certain it is, that
they have a mode of consulting together respecting the construction
of their cabins, their dykes, their artificial lakes, and many
other things which concern the preservation and safety of their
republic. They are said to station sentinels, whilst they are
occupied in cutting down with their teeth trees as large in
circumference as casks, on the borders of the lakes; and these
sentinels, by a cry or by knocking their tail against the surface
of the water, give warning of the approach of men or animals, when
the others instantly forsake their labours, and, plunging into the
water, save themselves by swimming to their cabins.
When beavers have made choice of a meadow traversed by a rivulet,
they construct, by their joint operation, dams or causeways, which,
impeding the course of the water, produce an inundation over the
whole meadow, sometimes several leagues in circumference. The dam
is composed of trees, which these animals cut down with their
four incisive teeth, drag along through the water, and arrange
across the river in the situation most convenient for stopping its
course. They afterwards bring grass, small wood and clay in their
mouths and on their tails, which they deposit between the wood
with so much industry and art, that a wall of masonry of greater
strength could scarcely be constructed. They labour during the
night with diligence and perseverance. Their tails supply the want
of trowels, their teeth serve them for axes, and their forefeet
for hands. Dykes, two or three hundred feet in length, twenty feet
high, and seven or eight in thickness, are thus completed in the
space of five or six months, although not more than a hundred of
these little animals have assisted each other in the operation.
The savages never destroy these dykes, but, from a principle of
superstition, allow them to remain entire, and are satisfied with
making only a small passage for the draining of the water. Besides
the faculty which the beavers possess of cutting down trees, the
judgment which they have acquired in directing the fall of these
immense masses upon the water, appears still more singular. They
pay attention to the direction of the wind, and carry on the
process in such a manner as to derive aid from thence, and thereby
to ensure the falling of the tree upon a lake or across a rivulet.
The neatness and convenience of their habitations seem to evince
a greater portion of skill and ingenuity than even the dykes,
both strength and address being necessary to enable them to plant
six stakes in the bed of the water. These are arranged exactly
in the centre of the pond, and upon them their house is erected
in the form of an oven, being composed of clay, of grass and of
branches of trees, to the height of three stages, in order to
possess a retreat, by ascending from one to the other when the
waters are increased by inundations, caused by the melting of the
ice and snows. The floors are made of junks of trees, and each
beaver has a distinct apartment. The entrance is from beneath the
water, where a large hole is made in the first floor, surrounded by
tender branches cut into small pieces, that they may be more easily
drawn into the cells when they are inclined to eat; for, as these
constitute their principal food, they have the foresight to lay in
a great store, particularly in autumn, before the frosts congeal
their lake and confine them to their cabins for two or three months.
The precaution which they use to establish and maintain order in
their republic, and to guard against pursuit, is admirable. All
other animals upon earth, however strong, however swift, vigorous
and armed by nature, stand in awe of creatures that are capable of
injuring them. The beaver, however, seems to have no other foe than
man to apprehend. The wolves, the foxes, and the bears, are little
solicitous to attack it in its cabin; had they even the faculty of
diving, they would not find the event greatly to their profit, for
the beaver, with his incisory and penetrating teeth, is capable of
maintaining a formidable defence.
The beavers are seldom taken in snares, unless they are baited with
a species of willow which is rare and of which they are very fond.
The mode of taking them in autumn is by making a hole of three or
four feet in diameter in the foundation of the dyke, to draw off
the water, and the beavers being left dry, the savages find them an
easy prey....
In winter, when the waters are frozen, they make holes in the ice
around the lodges of the beavers, to which nets are fixed from
the one to the other, and when they are properly extended, they
uncover with axes the cabins of these poor animals, which, throwing
themselves into the water and returning to breathe at the holes,
are entangled in the snares, from whence none escape but such as
the savages are inclined to exempt from the general havoc.