Daily Kennebec journal. [microfilm reel] (Augusta, Me.) 1870-1975, 1916-10-04

and dam builders nave cut oOWn WIFI
their sharp, spadelike teeth. so many
poplar and white birch trees, and
have. with logs and brush. construct
ed SO many dams to flow timberlands,
that the lumbermen complained to
the Legislature, with the result that
many districts have been opened to
hunters. and hundreds of licenses is
sued for the taking OF these animals,
which for many years had been pro-
tected by law at all seasons all over
the State.
No one knows how much timber has
been cut down by the busy beaver or
how many square miles of valuable
growth ruined by the lands being
flooded by beaver dams. but the lum-
bermen say that the money loss thus
caused is far in excess of the value of
all the beaver that ever lived in
Maine So loud became the complaints
that the Game Commissioners sus
pended the protective laws in many
localities where beaver abound and
issued licenses to hunters to kill the
animals.
1 Great Beaver Dams and Floods
| The beaver hourishes in many parts
of the vast timber area of Maine, and
has gained rapidly in numbers under
the protection of law. There are
scores of beaver dams in upper
Penobscot. Washington. Aroostook,
Somerset. Franklin and oxford coun-
ties Some of the dams are several
hundred feet in length and so strong
ly and skilfully constructed as to
challenge the admiration of engineers.
On Bennett brook in the town of Gull
ford, Piscataquis County. are dams all
of recent construction, which have
flooded the loWlands for half mile or
either hand and some remarkable
specimens of the skill of these furry
builders are to be seen on Pressure Isle
stream. in the town Of Caribou. while
on several tributaries of the kennebec
River beaver dams are so numerous
that they are a nuisance to lumber
mon.
There are beaver in other parts of
the world but those of North Ameri-
ca which are to be found in almost
every part of the continent, are by
far the cleverest and most industrious
of their species. The farther north
the beaver lives. the more Industrious
he is and the sllllier and thicker is
his fur Generally. the beaver is adj
nired. but he has plenty of enemies,
and among them are the despo!led
lumberman, the Indian and the fur
hunters, red and white. The fur
hunters kill him for the price of his
silky pelt, the Indian for his flesh
the eating of which. they believe, will
proong human life indefinitely,
What a Hunter Saw
An old hunter who has spent many
hours in watching beaver at work
gives them credit for astonishing in
telligence and remarkable engineer
ing skill. combined with tireless en-
ergy This hunter says that unless
friehtened the animals will prosecute
their building operations in the pres
ence of human beings. But. although
he gives the beaver credit for energy
and ingenuity, this observer declares
that some writer's attribute to them
powers they do not possess For eX-
ample he says that the beaver cam
not as many have been led to think,
make a stick or log lie at the bot
tom of a pond without weighing it
with mud or stones and that even
then the stick will sometimes get
away from them and rise to the sur
face. They do not use their tails as
trowels. but carry the mud that serves
them as mortar between their chin
and paws: nor can they always make
a tree fall in just the direction they
desire. However. their convenience in
this respect is served by the fact that
trees that grow along the banks of
streams or ponds naturally lean toward
the water Neither do beaver. he says.
! always remain in one place. When the
white birch, poplar. willow and other
trees on the bark of which they feed
become scarce in their immediate
neichhorhood the colony after tearing
q hole in their dam, will disband and
scatter to new and more favorable
! localities. This always happens in
the spring. Coming upon the deserted
works one will see that the now ex-
posed bottom of the pond is Uttered
with short sticks from which the
bark has been eaten and also notice
the round hole in each house, near the
bed Of the stream, that has served as
a door. p-stream several holes in
the bank will be noticed. These are
used in places of refuge by the
beaver when their village is attacked
and the houses destroyed. While the
dam is intact. these holes are under
water. but tunnels from them ter
inmate beneath the roots of large trees,
near the surface of the ground. afford
ing a means of escape when the fugi-
tives are hard pressed. The young
beaver are born in these passages and
not. as some suppose, in the partially
submerged houses on the dams.
| At the approach of autumn the
beaver usually migrate upstream and
construct at some convenient spot
new dam and new houses. The dam
is built of logs. some as large as six
or eight inches sins. diameter and Of
branches of all sizes and lengths down
, to brush and twisu all cleverly inter
woven and cemen3ed with mud. 1t
is said that these dSEs are so .tngen-
iously built that H&l break foot
square were to be made IN the top
of the structure a flood might pour
through without making the opening
any larger. a
A Wet Kitchen and Dry Parlor
The beaver houses--sometimes only
two or three. sometimes as many as
twenty or thirty-are built from the
bottom of the pond, in shoal water