The Roanoke times. [volume] (Roanoke, Va.) 1890-1895, 1891-08-20
TIE BUSY BEAVER.
An Animal That Is Growing
Scarccr IN This Country.
Remarkable I'cats Performed by Them
In the Construction of Their
Dams Their Food
and Habits.

imal, and everybody is acquainted
with the fact that 1t builds dams and
houses to dwell in, says n writer In
Forest and Stream. Their dams arc
exceedingly strong and durable, and
they arc prompt i'll repairing any in
| jury to them. A dam cut during the
day will usually be repaired tho Same
night. and il tho morning will DC as
| good as new. remember IN instance
Of this sort which occurred on San
Juan island. An old Englishman
named John Wootton, who was new to
the country, wished to get rid of a coll
ony Of beavers that lived on his place,
and one day cut their dam. The next
morning he found 1t repaired, and cut 1t
again; and this time TO brighten away
the animals when they should come to
rebuild 1t, he set up green cottonwood
pole on the dam and hung his overcoat
on it. The following day on visiting
the place he not only found the dam in
its usual good condition, but the cotton
wood pole and his OvcrcOat had zone to
help stop the gap he had made and
were now In the dam.
Beaver houses arc less common now
than they used to be, partly because
u,
but mainly because the presence of q
fresh beaver house betroys to the most
unslsilled eye the existence Of beaver in
the ncighborhool In the older dis
tricts beaver now generally live In holes
In the banks of the streams they in
habit, though in some parts of tho
Rocky mountains and in many places
on this coast the sight of u beaver
house is not uncommon.
They are never placed m very deep
water, for a base must be built for tho
house to stand on reaching up to the
surface, since the chamber Inhabited by
the occupants must be dry. The shape
of those houses which have seen on
the shore approaches the conical.
Those in the water are moro irregular,
sometimes only rounded, at others
long and rather fiat on top. Within
each house, and connected with the
water by concealed passage, through
which the beaver pass to and fro, is the
chamber which is the animals dwelling
place. 1t Is large enough to contain
seven or eight of them, and high
enough so thnt n beaver can convenient
~ sit up OH his launches. 1t is warm,
dry and clean, for tho beaver is eX-
trcncly neat in all it's habits
The food of the beaver consists chief
ly of the green bark of twigs and
young limbs of various trees. Cotton
wood bari, Is preferred, then comes
willow, then alder, but the bark Of al
most any tree may be eaten. have
known them to eat pine and white
cedar. The beaver often cuts down
trees of very considerable size to get at
the smaller limbs, which they eat hnvo
seen cottonwoods twenty inches III
diameter so cut, and once on Vancouver
island, near Johnston's straits, found
cedar two and onc-haif feet through
which they had gnawed down. This
work of cutting down large tree Is
done by n single animal 1 have seen
the beaver engaged in the operation,
which Is performed as follows: The
beaver sits up on its launches facing
the tree, and with It's forepaws resting
against it. With his head turned on
one side he cuts q groove above and
then one below and bites out tho chip,
taking it off III almost the same way an
aXman would. He thus saves himself
the trouble of gnawing all the wood up
into fine cuttings. When the tree is
fellcd the whole community attach and
cut up the tender limbs, carrying them
away to the cache.
Unlike many of our gnGwing animals,
the beaver does not sleep through the
winter; he remains active, often VEN
turing abroad during the whole of the
cold weather. He must therefore have
food, and large part of the summer
and autumn Is devoted to securing this
food and dcpositing it in caches This
food consists of the limbs and twigs of
the trees most preferred by the beaver.
They are cut from one and q half to
thrcc feet long, stripped of their leaves
and smaller twigs, carried to the water
and iloatcd to the cache, where they arc
sunk. And here comes very curious
point These sticks arc floatc<l TO the
cache and are sunk by the beaver TO the
bottom of the water, where they remain
without any apparent anchorage. They
arc not stuck in the mud of the bottom,
nor held down by weights. If you lift
one to the surface it will float, but you
may move it about on the bottom with
out its rising
/ have myself tried this with sticks
! from which the bark has been eaten,
but have never done SO with green I'M
peeled limbs before the beaver had
taken them into their houses. This
matter to me is q very mysterious one,
and have never been able to get any
hint rs to how these sticks wero sunk
All through tho winter the beaver visit
these cachcs, carry the sticks to their
houses where they eat off tho bnr., ro-
turning the bare sticks to the water
Z