The aegis & intelligencer. [volume] (Bel Air, Md.) 1864-1923, 1901-12-13
n: Esls and 1n.ellisencsr
BEL AIR, MD. DEG. 10. 1901
THE BEAVER IN WINTER.

THE BEAVER IN WINTER.
His Curious Method of Breathing
Under the Ice.
THE beaver is really sort of portable
pulp mill, grinding up most any kind of
wood that comes his way. l once meas
ured white birch tree, twenty-five
inches through, cut down by beaver. A
single beaver generally, if not always,
amputates the tree and when it comes
down the whole family falls to and has
regular frolic with the bark and branches.
A big beaver will bring down fair sized
sapling-say three inches through-in
about two minutes and large tree in
about an hour.
Zone of the queerest facts about the
beaver is the rapidity with which his
long, chisel shaped teeth recover from an
injury | have known beavers to break
their teeth in biting a trap. and when |
caught them again ten days afterward
you couldn't see a sign Of the break-the
teeth had grown out to their former per-
lection in that short period.
las compared with the otter or mink,
the beaver is very slow swimmer. Ills
front legs hang by his side, and he uses
only his webbed hind feet for purposes Of
swimming. 1t is easy to capture one IN
II canoe if you can find him in shoal wa
ter. He is a most determined fighter, but
clumsy and easy to handle. Ii he could
get hold of you with his teeth, he would
almost take a leg off; so you want to
watch him sharply. The place to grab
him is by the taii.
THE ability of a beaver to remain I'M
der water for long time is really not so
tough a problem as it looks. When the
lake or pond is frozen over. beaver will
come to the under surface Of the ice and
expel his breath, so that it will form
wide, fiat bubble. The air. coming in con-
tact with the ice and water, is purified,
| and the beaver breathes it again. This
operation he can repeat several times.
! The otter and nluskrat do the same thing
1T almost takes a burglar proof safe to
| hold a newly captured beaver. l once
caught an old one and two kittens up the
north branch of the Sou-west, put them in
a barrel and brought them down to Mira
| MICH lake. That night she gnawed
| hole through the barrel and cleared out
| leaving her kittens. They were so young
that had no hope of feeding them, SO
released them in the hope that the mother
might ind them Soon after that l
caught O big male beaver. l made a
large log pen for him of dry spruce, but
the second night he cut log and disap-
pcared.
Beavers. when alarmed, generally make
up stream, so l went to the brook where
a little branch came IN, and l thought l
would go up that little way, and !
| hadn't gone more than ten rods before
came across my lad sitting up in the bed
| of the brook having lunch on a stick he
had cut. He actually looked as II he
knew he was playing truant when he
| caught sight of me out of the side OF his
| eye.
81 picked him up by the tail, brought
him back, put him in the pen. supplied
| him with plenty of fresh poplar and he
seemed as tame as possible and never
| gave me any more trouble. brought
him out to Stanley, where he lived long
time. Turnbull had mongrel dog which
was jealous of the beaver, and one day
attacked him. He did that only once, for
the beaver nipped the dogs tail off quick
ern'n a cat would catch a mouse. "-Rod
| and Gun.