Grant County herald. [volume] (Lancaster, Wis.) 1850-1968, 1906-08-22
FEATS OF THE BEAVER.
Ability to Cut Timber and Handle II
Busiest on Moonlight Nights.

/
| Busiest on Moonlight Nights.
| 1t is wonderful what large pieces
Of wood beaver will move, says Q
writer in Outdoor Life. I have fire.
| quently seen cuttings of cottonwood
large enough for fence posts that has
| been moved over level ground and
through underbrush to water several
hundred feet away.
If timber is cut on a bank where
down grade can be had all the way
to the streams much larger pieces
will be moved. Beavers are very
skillful wood choppers and seldom fail
to fell tree in the right direction;
that is, with the butts ali pointing to-
ward the trail to the stream, and
never telling the top of one tree into
the top of another.
Smooth trails are always made
from the scene Of the operations on
| land to the water and all Of the ma
terial is carried over them. If the
cutting happens to be on a side hill
above the stream a slide not unlike
that sometimes used by lumbermen
will be made
The citing of the large growth stuff
| is mainly done in the fall and winter;
willows, small poplars and cotton
woods being used in the spring and
| summer. After getting down the lar
! ger trees the branches are all cut off
and made into lengths suitable for
| transporting and taken to the water.
after which the trunk is cut up and
as much of it removed as possible.
The bark of these pieces, which with
the twigs forms the principal items
! of food, is all gnawed off in the water
| or at the houses. The parked sticks
are then used in repairing or strength
ening the dams or stacked on top of
the house.
Beavers generally work on moon
light nights only, and scarcely ever
| in the daytime, though they may
| sometimes be seen making repairs on
dam when it needs immediate at
tention.
Contrary to the general opinion the
beaver does not always build a
house for himself, being content very
often with a burrow in the bank of
| the stream. AS is the case with the
houses the entrance to a burrOw Is
under water, though sometimes there
is an opening from the surface
through which brush and sticks are
carried for their food supply.
These burrows are sometimes very
commodious and offer comfortable
quarters for large colony. They
seem to be generally dug from the
banks of a stream which is too swift
to make the building of dams easy
and which has a deep channel. A lone
beaver who has been driven out by his
fellows for some cause or other IS
very likely to make such home in
the bank of a stream.
When a colony Of beaver is har-
assed by its enemies or when inter-
nal dissensiOns arise part or the
whole of the colony will establish
new home some distance way. They
lose no time in choosing weak por-
ton of the river, where the banks are
we'll wooded, and fall at once to work.
Where the river is rapid one OF the
slow reaches between the rapids IS
chosen for dam. The wood is cut
above the dam site, sometimes a.
quite distance and transported 10
the water, where it can be easily moV'
ed down stream
The sticks are placed more or less
parallel to each other, so as to make
compact structure, and the contln-
uous pile thus resulting extends Ill
rectly across the stream.
Mud is continually used to MI the
interstices as the dam grows IN
height. At some distance up stream
the house is now built, also of sticks
and mud, in as secluded and inacces-
sible place as possible.
In the days Of our great grand
fathers the beaver was a resident OF
many streams and small lakes all the
way fom Maine to Oregon. He IS
now numbered among our rare an
imals, and a few years ago seemed
doomed to total extinction.
Recently some Of the Northwest
States have given him a certain
amount of protection, and in favor
able localities of this region he is now
increasing quite rapidly in numbers.