THE CANADIAN BEAVER.* INDIAN tradition ascribes the rescue of the
world from its• aqueous ages to the industry and intelligence of the beaver, the animal which first knew how to control and turn to account the opposing elements of land and water. The beavers were of gigantic size before the Great Spirit "smoothed them down" to their present dimensions, after they had completed his work on the unfinished earth ; and they, with their
CastoroZonia ; the Elision! and Traditions of tho dinorican Beaver, ny II_ T. Martin, .Landon Edward Stanford. fellow-workers, the musquash and the otter, dived and brought up the mud, and with it made mountains and lakes, caves and cataracts, dividing the land from the waters, while the envious spirits of evil pelted the Titan beavers with gigantic rocks, which still strew the plains and valleys with monstrous boulders of misshapen stone. If the legend needed any jus- tification beyond its picturesqueness and simplicity, a study of Mr. Martin's work on The History and Traditions of the Cana- dian Beaver would almost bear out the Indian belief that the intelligence and mechanical skill of the beaver were prior and superior to that of man in the development of the New World. The exaggerated descriptions of the beaver-lodges and engineering feats given by the early French Canadians, hardly deserve the author's condemnation ; the works themselves are so complete and so ingenious, that the symmetrical additions of early explorers add but little to the facts which their in- complete observations only partially grasped. That a creature whose engineering structures were based, consciously or un- consciously, on principles only known to highly civilised man, should embellish them with conveniences known to half- civilised man, was a natural inference ; and to credit the beaver with a wish to insert windows in the walls of his lodge was no great flight of fancy to men who had seen with their own eyes that the same animal could construct a dyke a mile long, with the precise section which human experience has determined to be that best adapted to resist the forces of pent-up water. Mr. Martin has so well fulfilled the promise of his title- page, to present an " exhaustive monograph popularly written on the life and history of the beaver, that an attempt to follow the varied commercial, historical, and palaaontological references in which the story of the beaver abounds, would be impossible. It will, perhaps, be sufficient to consider the main questions of the extraordinary intelligence exhibited by the animal, and the possibility of its preservation from the total destruction with which the species is now threatened. So far as the most careful modern observation shows, there is but one claim which has been seriously made for the beaver's sagacity which is matter for doubt. It has been asserted that the animal always cuts the trees it selects, so that they may fall towards the water. There is evidence that this is not always the case. But trees growing near the water naturally tend to lean towards the stream, and naturally extend the heaviest growth of branches over the water, where light and space are greatest, and the greater number of those cut by the beavers would probably fall in that direction without any special provision. But the inseparable features of a beaver-colony, the dyke, or " dam," and the less famous, but almost equally wonderful, "canal," suggest an estimate of brain-power or inherited in- stinct for mechanics which an exhaustive examination of the facts heightens rather than diminishes.
The object of the dam is to supply a temporary want,—not a permanent necessity always present to the beaver-mind. In summer, the beavers wander up the streams, finding food without difficulty. In winter, they require a permanent supply of water at a certain level, in which they can swim beneath the ice, store their supply of branches for food so as to be accessible without exposing themselves, and keep a " moat " round their lodges. Left to itself, the stream would run low in winter, when the freezing of the snow and earth stops the water-supply. Hence the necessity for the dam to maintain it at a constant level. Such a train of arguments sup- poses a number of " concepts " in the beaver's brain which would occur to no other animal. To carry it out efficiently, would puzzle most human beings not acquainted with engineer- ing. Moreover, the work must be done with the material at hand, so that beaver-dams are found built of branches and mad, of grass, of sand, and of mud only. To get the wood to the water-side, the beaver clears paths, or " rolling- ways," outs a water-channel to meet and assist in the transportation of the wood, and in some cases actually makes a long canal for water-carriage and safe travelling. " Though the beaver-canal is not so popularly known," writes Mr. Martin, "and is more easily reconciled with instinct, it must not be supposed that it is a minor feature in the performances of this animal ; it is almost incredible that a work, so ap- parently artificial, could have remained unnoticed till 1868, when Mr. Morgan published his valuable notes, so amply illustrating the works of the American beaver. When the 'colony has been settled quietly for many years, and has cut all the desirable trees close at hand, and further supplies are sometimes hundreds of yards away, the necessity for clear rolling ways and good canals is obvious." No doubt the necessity is obvious,—but that does not explain the wonder that a small rodent animal should anticipate civilised man and make a road to bring commodities to its city, instead of shifting to a fresh encampment like the Red Indian himself, when supplies are exhausted. Our estimate of the individual intelligence of beavers must greatly depend on the power of adaptation shown by them in special cases. Mr. Martin seems to lean to the opinion that the creature is controlled by a dominant instinct which makes its action almost automatic, and alleges this want of adaptability as an insurmountable obstacle to its domestication. The instances given of its behaviour in captivity hardly justify such a conclusion. A tame beaver, kept as a pet in a trapper's hut, " used to lie before the fire as contentedly as a dog. It was not till winter set in that it became a nuisance. Poor old Bill McHugh's house was well ventilated, an open chink between the logs being thought very little of by himself and his family ; but the beaver was very impatient of such negligence, and used to work all night at making things air-tight and comfortable, without much dis- crimination as to the materials it employed. If Bill or his guests went to bed leaving their mocassins and tichigans drying before the fire, they were certain to be found in the morning stowed away in some chink or cranny ; and stray blankets and articles of clothing were found torn up for the same purpose." That was contrary to our notions of house- keeping, but the beaver's wish to keep out the cold was not more "instinctive " than that of any squatter's wife on a Surrey heath. The preparations made to meet the severe cold of the present winter by the beavers at the " Zoo " in Regent's Park are an odd mixture of cleverness and what seems too like the stupidity of " instinct." Their " lodge " is partly their own building, and partly " subsidised" by the authorities. That is, it has a roof of corrugated iron supported by strong posts at the corners. The sides are carefully built up with branches set on end by the beavers themselves, and well plastered with mud, which they push in with their fore-paws and pat down hard. This year they have not only carried the plaster up to the " eaves " of the house, but patted a quantity of mud down on the iron roof, a quite unnecessary labour, except on the assumption that there are joints in it which require filling. The whole is crowned with a pile of branches, which serves no useful purpose. Last year these beavers dug a canal from the stone-rimmed pond to one of the burrows running under their house. We were not able to see whether it actually joined the pond, or whether the rim of stone which divided it from the pool at the surface was continued downwards. In any ease, they had managed to fill the canal with water, and had a clear waterway from the house to the edge of the pool. At the present moment, they are busy cutting through a poplar-stem ; the largest chip of wood lying at its foot measured 3i in. Another stump is being carefully gnawed into fine sawdust, which is probably intended for bedding.
If the beaver is to be saved from extermination, some means for its artificial preservation must be found, though, from the failure of the attempts made in Prussia and elsewhere in Central Europe to save the species—so late as 1725, an edict was published in Berlin prohibiting the destruction of the beavers of the Elbe—Mr. Martin is not hopeful of success, even in Canada. Lord Bute's colony in the island from which he takes his title appear to have been lees fortunate than was at first supposed. In 1883, when it was desired to send specimens to the Fisheries Exhibition, it was found that their numbers, as estimated by the work done, had been much exaggerated, and the enclosure was completely ransacked before a couple could be secured. One hundred and eighty- seven large trees were cut down by the beavers between 1874 and 1878. In that time, they dammed a pool seventy-eight yards long, and constructed seven dykes, one having an embankment of 105 ft. But in spite of the difficulties which their engineering industry presents to their would-be pre- servers, proposals for a " beaver-ranch " are still being discussed in Canada; and though experience forbids the hope that they can be kept for profit, sentiment may yet succeed in preserving the creature which has been adopted as the "totem" of the pale-faces' colony by the great Lakes.
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