The Irish standard. [volume] (Minneapolis, Minn. ;) 1886-1920, 1891-05-16
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An Animal That Isz Growing
5 Scarcer ia This Country.
Remarkable Feats Performed by Them
in the Construction of Their
Dams - Their Food
and Habits.

Dams - Their Food
-
So much has been written about the
habits of the beaver that almost every
'one knows something about the an
imal, and everybody is acquainted
with the fact that it builds dams and
houses to dwell in. says writer in
Forest and Stream. Their dams are
exceedingly strong and durable, and
they are prompt in repairing any in
jury to them. A dam cut during the
day will usually be repaired the same
night, and in the morning will be as
good as new. I remember an 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 col
ony of beavers that lived on his place,
and one day cut their dam. The next
morning he found it repaired, and cut it
again; and this time to brighten away
the animals when they should come to
rebuild it, 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 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,
irfx ho ~ a
fresh beaver house betrays to the most
unskilled 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 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 l 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 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 beaver can convenient
ly sit up on his launches. 1t is warm,
dry and clean, for the beaver is ex-
tremely 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 bark 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. I have
seen cottonwoods twenty inches in
diameter so cut, and once on Vancouver
island, near Johnston's straits, found a
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. I have seen
the beaver engaged in the operation,
which is performed as follows: The
beaver sits up on it's launches facing
the tree, and with it's forepaws resting
against it. With his head turned on
one side he cuts a groove above and
then one below and bites out 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
felled the whole community attack and
cut up the tender limbs, carrying them
away to the cache.
Unlike many Of our gnawing 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 depositing 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 a half to
three feet long, stripped of their leaves
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and foated to the cache, where they are
sunk. And here comes a very curious
point. These sticks are hoated to the
cache and are sunk by the beaver to the
bottom of the water, where they remain
without any apparent anchorage. They
are 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.
l have myself tried this with sticks
from which the bark has been eaten,
but have never done so with green IN
peeled limbs before the beaver had
taken them into their houses. This
matter to me is avery mysterious one,
and have never been able to get any
hint as to how these sticks were sunk.
AL through the winter the beaver visit
these caches, carry the sticks to their