Source.—Travels through the Canadas, by George Heriot, Deputy Postmaster-General of British North America. London, 1807.

The beavers associate in bands to the number of about an hundred in each, and are supposed, by several who have witnessed their economy, to possess a certain jargon, by means of which they communicate their sentiments to each other. Certain it is, that they have a mode of consulting together respecting the construction of their cabins, their dykes, their artificial lakes, and many other things which concern the preservation and safety of their republic. They are said to station sentinels, whilst they are occupied in cutting down with their teeth trees as large in circumference as casks, on the borders of the lakes; and these sentinels, by a cry or by knocking their tail against the surface of the water, give warning of the approach of men or animals, when the others instantly forsake their labours, and, plunging into the water, save themselves by swimming to their cabins.

When beavers have made choice of a meadow traversed by a rivulet, they construct, by their joint operation, dams or causeways, which, impeding the course of the water, produce an inundation over the whole meadow, sometimes several leagues in circumference. The dam is composed of trees, which these animals cut down with their four incisive teeth, drag along through the water, and arrange across the river in the situation most convenient for stopping its course. They afterwards bring grass, small wood and clay in their mouths and on their tails, which they deposit between the wood with so much industry and art, that a wall of masonry of greater strength could scarcely be constructed. They labour during the night with diligence and perseverance. Their tails supply the want of trowels, their teeth serve them for axes, and their forefeet for hands. Dykes, two or three hundred feet in length, twenty feet high, and seven or eight in thickness, are thus completed in the space of five or six months, although not more than a hundred of these little animals have assisted each other in the operation. The savages never destroy these dykes, but, from a principle of superstition, allow them to remain entire, and are satisfied with making only a small passage for the draining of the water. Besides the faculty which the beavers possess of cutting down trees, the judgment which they have acquired in directing the fall of these immense masses upon the water, appears still more singular. They pay attention to the direction of the wind, and carry on the process in such a manner as to derive aid from thence, and thereby to ensure the falling of the tree upon a lake or across a rivulet.

The neatness and convenience of their habitations seem to evince a greater portion of skill and ingenuity than even the dykes, both strength and address being necessary to enable them to plant six stakes in the bed of the water. These are arranged exactly in the centre of the pond, and upon them their house is erected in the form of an oven, being composed of clay, of grass and of branches of trees, to the height of three stages, in order to possess a retreat, by ascending from one to the other when the waters are increased by inundations, caused by the melting of the ice and snows. The floors are made of junks of trees, and each beaver has a distinct apartment. The entrance is from beneath the water, where a large hole is made in the first floor, surrounded by tender branches cut into small pieces, that they may be more easily drawn into the cells when they are inclined to eat; for, as these constitute their principal food, they have the foresight to lay in a great store, particularly in autumn, before the frosts congeal their lake and confine them to their cabins for two or three months.

The precaution which they use to establish and maintain order in their republic, and to guard against pursuit, is admirable. All other animals upon earth, however strong, however swift, vigorous and armed by nature, stand in awe of creatures that are capable of injuring them. The beaver, however, seems to have no other foe than man to apprehend. The wolves, the foxes, and the bears, are little solicitous to attack it in its cabin; had they even the faculty of diving, they would not find the event greatly to their profit, for the beaver, with his incisory and penetrating teeth, is capable of maintaining a formidable defence.

The beavers are seldom taken in snares, unless they are baited with a species of willow which is rare and of which they are very fond. The mode of taking them in autumn is by making a hole of three or four feet in diameter in the foundation of the dyke, to draw off the water, and the beavers being left dry, the savages find them an easy prey....

In winter, when the waters are frozen, they make holes in the ice around the lodges of the beavers, to which nets are fixed from the one to the other, and when they are properly extended, they uncover with axes the cabins of these poor animals, which, throwing themselves into the water and returning to breathe at the holes, are entangled in the snares, from whence none escape but such as the savages are inclined to exempt from the general havoc.