The DeLamar nugget. [volume] (DeLamar, Idaho) 1891-1900, 1891-06-30
n The BUSY BEA YER.
AN Animal That Is Growing
Scarcer in This Country.
Remarkable Tcats Performed by Them
In the Construction of Their
Dams = Their Food
and Habits.

one knows something about the an
imal, and everybody is acquainte
with the fact that it builds dams an
houses to dwell in, says a writer il
Forest and Stream. Their dams ar
exceedingly strong and durable, an,
they are prompt in repairing any in
| jury to them. A dam cut during tn
day will usually be repaired the SAM
night, and in the morning viii be a
! good as new. / remember an instanc,
of this sort which occurred on San
Juan island. An old Englishmai
named John Wootton, who was new t,
the country, wished to get'rid of a col
ony of beavers that lived on his place
and one day cut their dam. The mex,
morning he found it repaired, and cut il
again; and this time to brighten away
the animals when they should come tc
rebuild it, he set up a 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 overcoat had gone to
help stop the gap he had made and
were now in the dam.
Beaver houses are less common now
than they used to be, partly because
beavers themselves are less abundant,
but mainly because the presence of a
fresh beaver house betrays to the most
unski1led eye the existence of beaver in
the neighborhood. 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 the
Rocky mountains and in many places
on this coast the sight of a beaver
house is not uncommon.
They are never placed in very deep
water, for base must be built for the
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 more irregular,
sometimes only rounded, at others
long and rather fat on top. Within
each house, and connected with the
water by a 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 that a beaver can convenient
ly sit up on his launches. 1t is warm,
dry and clean, fer the beaver is ex-
tremely neat in ali it's habits.
The food of the beaver consists chief
ly of tie green bark OF twigs and
young limbs of various trees. Cotton
wood bark is preferred, then comes
willow, then alder, but the bark of al |
most any tree may be eaten. I have
known them to cat pine and white
cedar. The beaver often cuts down
trees of very considerable size to get at |
the smaller limo winch they eat. have
seen cottonwoods twenty inches in
diameter so cut, and once on Vancouver
island, near Johnston's straits, found
cedar two and one-half feet through
which they had gnawed down. This
work of cutting down a large tree is
done by single animal 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 its forepaws resting
against it. With his head turned on
one side he cuts a groove above and
then one below and bites ont the chip,
taking it off in 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
fclled the whole community attack and
,ut up the tender limbs, carrying them
away to the cache.
Unlike many of our gnawing animals,
he beaver does not sleep through the
winter; he remains active, often ven
,uring abroad during the whole Of the
,old weather. lie must therefore have
God, and a large part of the summer
md autumn is devoted to securing this
God and depositing it in caches. This
cod consists Of the limbs and twigs of
he trees most preferred by the beaver.
hey are cut from one and a half to
hree feet long, stripped of their leaves
nd smaller twigs, carried to the water :
nd fioatcd to the cache, where they are
unl. And here comes a very curious /
ONT. These sticks are 1oated to the
ache and are sunk by the beaver to the
ottom of the water, where they remain !
'ithout any apparent anchorage They
re not stuck in the mud of the bottom. I
Or held down by weights. If you lift 1
ne to the surface it will float, but you Y
ay move it about on the bottom with
1T its rising.
have myself tried this with sticks ;.
ON which the bark has been eaten, =
1t have never done so with green I'M :
,eled limbs before the beaver had l
ken them into their houses. This Q
after to me is very mysterious one, =
ID l have never been able to get any "
at as to how these sticks were sunk. d
! through the winter the beaver visit O.
csc caches, carry the sticks to their O
uses where they eat off the bark, re- N
rning the bare sticks to the water. &c
metiInes it may happen that for some