Manchester Democrat. [volume] (Manchester, Iowa) 1875-1930, 1906-08-22
FEATs OF THE BEAVER.
Ability to Cut Timber and Handle II
Busiest on Moonlight Nights.

b
Ability to Cut Timber and Handle II
Busiest on Moonlight Nights.
1t is wonderful what large pieces
of wood beaver will move. says a
writer in Outdoor Life. have fire.
quently seen cuttings of cottonwood
large enough for fence posts that had
been moved over level ground and
through underbrush to water several
hundred feet away.
If timber is cut on bank where a
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 a tree in the right direction;
that is, with the butts all 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. II the
above the stream 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 barked 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
a dam when 1t needs immediate at
tention.
Contrary to the general opinion the
beaver does not always build a
house for himself, being content very
often with burrow in the bank of
the stream. AS is the case with the
houses the entrance to burrow is
under water, though son etimes 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 a large colony They
seem to be generally dug from the
banks of stream which is too swift
to make the building of dams easy
and which has deep channel. A lone
beaver who has been driven out by his
fellows for sone cause or other Is
very likely to make such home in
the bank of stream.
When colony Of beaver is har.
assed by It's enemies or when inter.
nal discussions arise part or the
whole of the colony will establish a
new home some distance way They
lose no time in choosing a weak por-
ton of the river, where the banks are
well 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 at
quite distance and transported to
the water, where it can be easily NOV.
ed down stream.
The sticks are placed more or less
parallel to each other, so as to make
a compact structure, and the contin-
uous pile thus resulting extends d.
rectly across the stream.
Mud is continually used to fill 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 a 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 few years ago seemed
doomed to total extinction.
Recently some of the Northwest
States have given him certain
amount of protection, and in favor
able localities of this region he is now
increasing quite rapidly in numbers.