CHAPTER XVIBEAVER-CANALS AND BEAVER-MEADOWS—ANTIQUITY OF BEAVER-WORKS—BEAVERS AND RAILWAY COMPANIES—WHITE BEAVERS.
BEAVER-CANALS AND BEAVER-MEADOWS—ANTIQUITY OF BEAVER-WORKS—BEAVERS AND RAILWAY COMPANIES—WHITE BEAVERS.
We have seen the beaver as a dam-maker and a house-builder, but we have not yet considered him as a maker of canals. This we will now proceed to do. In the construction of the dam and lodge, a great quantity of wood is, as we have seen, required, and when the trees do not grow very thickly, those on the edge of the pond are soon cut down and made use of, and gradually, as more and more fall, the beavers have to go farther and farther away from the water, in order to procure fresh timber. To transport this felled timber, overland, to the pond becomes a more and more laborious task, and at last an impossible one, many of the logs made use of being of considerable, or even of great size, when compared with that of the beaver itself. To overcome this difficulty, the beaver sets to work and excavates a trench or cutting in the ground, about three feet wide and as many deep. Commencing it at the brink of the pond, he carries it on to the spot where the trees he covets are growing, and when these, intheir turn, have been cut down, he lengthens it till it reaches others, and so on, following the trees as they gradually recede from the neighbourhood of the pond. Of course the water runs up into the channel thus excavated, so that now, when the beaver has cut up his logs, he has only to float them down the canal that he has so cleverly excavated. This he does by swimming with them in his mouth, or pushing them in front of him with his paws and nose; the water (though there is no current to help) offers very little resistance, and it is now quite an easy matter. Both the trappers and the Indians call these cuttings canals; and canals they are, it is obvious, just as much as those we make for barges to ply on. According to the size of the pond, and the scarcity or otherwise of the trees near its banks, will be the number of the canals made from it by the beavers. A pond figured in Mr. Morgan’s book has five, at different points, all round it, and some might have a great many more. It is wonderful the length to which some of these canals extend. One that Mr. Morgan speaks of was close on six hundred feet, and there are some that are longer.
Beavers live together, not in large numbers, as used to be supposed, but two or three families in the same pond. Such ponds, however, continue to be inhabited by the descendants of such families, from generation to generation, and as the dams are always being repaired and extended by them, and the canals lengthened, they at last become works of considerable magnitude. No one who first saw one of these great, ancient beaver-dams wouldsuppose it to be the work of comparatively small animals, or, indeed, of any animal at all, except man. As for the canals, their banks soon become covered with moss and vegetation, so that they look like natural sluggish streams, oozing through the flat, marshy land. Mr. Morgan, speaking of them, says: “When I first came upon these canals, and found they were christened with this name, both by Indians and trappers, I doubted their artificial character, and supposed them referable to springs as their producing cause; but their form, location, and evident object showed conclusively that they were beaver excavations.”
Again, in considering these wonderful works of a quadruped from the point of view of the intelligence required for their production, the same writer says: “In the excavations of artificial canals, as a means for transporting their wood by water to their lodges, we discover, as it seems to me, the highest act of intelligence and knowledge performed by beavers. Remarkable as the dam may well be considered, from its structure and objects, it scarcely surpasses, if it may be said to equal, these waterways, here called canals, which are executed through the low lands bordering their ponds, for the purpose of reaching the hard wood, and of affording a channel for its transportation to their lodges. To conceive and execute such a design presupposes a more complicated and extended process of reasoning than that required for the construction of a dam, and although a much simpler work to perform, when the thought wasfully developed, it was far less to have been expected from a mute animal.” However, I am not sure that I follow Mr. Morgan here. To make a dam must have required as much intelligence as to make a canal, if we suppose that the beaver first said to itself, “I will put an obstacle in the way of the stream, and thus by checking the flow of the water, and causing it to flood its banks, I shall have a nice large pond to live and play in.” That, surely, would have been just as clever as for it to have said or thought, “I will make a waterway from the pond to the trees, and then I shall be able to float my logs down by water instead of having to drag them over the land.”
Beavers Tree Felling.When the tree is about to fall the beavers make a dash for the water to escape the unwelcome attentions of their foes, which will be attracted to the spot by the crash of the falling tree.
Beavers Tree Felling.When the tree is about to fall the beavers make a dash for the water to escape the unwelcome attentions of their foes, which will be attracted to the spot by the crash of the falling tree.
Beavers Tree Felling.
When the tree is about to fall the beavers make a dash for the water to escape the unwelcome attentions of their foes, which will be attracted to the spot by the crash of the falling tree.
But I think myself that the beaver never had either of these ideas in its mind—at least not at first—but that it found out by a lot of little accidents—or, as we say, through practice—the advantages of both proceedings, and then acted accordingly. I see, for instance, in the plates which Mr. Morgan gives of the beaver-ponds, with the canals running out of them, that there are some little waterways which are not marked as canals. These, I suppose, must be meant to be natural, and whether they are or not, it is almost certain that there would be some shallow and elongated depressions in the ground round the pond, into which the water in it would run. It would be quite natural for the beaver to take advantage of these, and, in pulling large logs of wood into them, he would have found that they moved more easily when the ground near these little channels was muddy and sloppy.But simply by pulling and tugging at them there, he would have been making the ground muddier and sloppier, and so, having found out, by accident, the good he was doing, he might have gone on doing it on purpose, and thus, little by little, have got to making a canal. Now, perhaps, he knows exactly what he makes it for, and works just as one of our own engineers would, but even of this we cannot be quite sure. However, this is a book about facts, so I will leave these speculative questions for someone else (or for nobody) to decide.
There is one other thing that the beavers make, besides their dams, their lodges, and their canals, and that is their meadows; but beaver-meadows, as they are called, are not the result of design on the part of the animal, but only the necessary consequence of its actions in other respects. Their appearance, and the way in which they are caused, are thus described by Mr. Morgan: “Where dams are constructed,” he tells us, “the waters first destroy the timber within the area covered by the ponds. When the adjacent lands are low, they are occasionally overflowed after heavy rains, and are at all times saturated with water from the ponds. In course of time the trees within the area affected are totally destroyed; and in their place a rank, luxuriant grass springs up. A level meadow, in the strict and proper sense of the term, is thus formed; although much unlike the meadow of the cultivated farm. At a distance they appear to be level and smooth; but when you attempt to walk over them, they are found to be a series of hummocks, formed ofearth and a mass of coarse roots of grass rising about a foot high, while around each of them there is a narrow strip of bare and sunken ground. The bare spaces, which are but a few inches wide, have the appearance of innumerable watercourses, and through them the water passes when the meadows are overflowed.”
These meadows, though not designed by the beavers, are yet useful to them, for, as Mr. Morgan says: “In addition to the nutriment which the roots of these grasses afford to the beavers, the meadows themselves are clearings in the wilderness, by means of which the light as well as the heat of the sun is let in upon their lodges.” Of course, when land that was once dry becomes overflowed with water, when peculiar-looking meadows appear, that were not there before, when canals wind about through them, and when trees that were formerly abundant grow thinner or even disappear, a considerable change takes place in the appearance of the country; and so numerous, till lately, were beavers in North America, that a very large extent of territory may be said to be the work, not, indeed, of their hands, but of their paws and teeth. Sometimes the Indians have been alarmed at the number of trees cut down by these animals, thinking they would not have sufficient fuel for their own encampments, but here, I think, they must have feared without cause, since beavers and trees have both been plentiful in the country from time immemorial.
On one occasion, however, by making a dam across a small stream running parallel with one of the principal railway lines of Canada, the beavers produced anaccumulation of water against the railway embankment. As it was feared that the line might be flooded, or the earth supporting it weakened, with possible disastrous consequences, a cutting was made through the centre of the dam, thus lowering the water to its original level. The beavers, however, were accustomed to repairing their dams, and did so in this instance. The company again cut the dam, the beavers again repaired it, and this conflict between an animal and one of the chief commercial enterprises of the country continued, till the dam, having been fifteen times cut through, was at length abandoned by its architects. This shows, certainly, great perseverance on the part of the beavers, but it shows also that they are capable of learning by experience. Why the dam should be always cut through, they could not, probably, conceive, and experience had hitherto taught them that the proper way of dealing with a breach was by repairing it. It now taught them that there were some breaches which it was no good to repair, and perhaps it took them no longer to learn, or, rather, to infer this, than, under similar circumstances, it would have taken ourselves. A general will often try many assaults upon a fortified place before he comes to the conclusion that it is too strong to be taken.
As has been mentioned before, incidentally, the beaver belongs to the order of rodents or gnawing animals, of which our most familiar examples are the rat and the mouse. He is the second largest animal of the order, the first being the great capybara of South America, which creature weighs as much as 90 or even 100 lbs. Thebeavers, when full grown, may weigh as much as 50, but it is rare for one to attain this size. Though usually of a reddish brown, black beavers are sometimes met with, and white ones, though extremely rare, are not absolutely unknown. Traherne in hisJourney to the Northern Oceansays: “In the course of twenty years’ experience in the countries about Hudson’s Bay, though I have travelled six hundred miles to the west of the sea-coast, I never saw but one white beaver-skin, and it had many reddish and brown hairs along the ridge of the back. The sides and the belly were of a glossy, silvery white.” Prince Maximilian, too, who also travelled in North America, says that he “saw one beautifully spotted with white,” and that “yellowish white and pure white ones are not unfrequently caught on the Yellowstone.” This, however, was a long time ago. Not only white beavers, but brown ones too are getting rare now.
Beavers are nocturnal, so that it is not so easy to see them working at their dams and lodges as it might otherwise be. However, it would not be very easy, even if they worked in the day, for persecution has made them extremely shy and wary, and perhaps has even had something to do with their habits in this respect. On land the beaver is somewhat awkward, and not at all fast, so that, though he is able to gallop, an ordinary dog could soon run him down. The water is his more natural element, and here he is easy and graceful. His sight, at least in the daytime, is not very good, but his smell and his hearing are most acute. Upon the latter sense he relies so much that he will often choose out some littlehillock or rising piece of ground, where he will sit up on his hind legs like a sentinel, listening attentively. Then, says Mr. Morgan, his best biographer, “he will retire, but only to return at intervals, and repeat the observation until satisfied whether or not danger is near.” With this interesting trait we will take our leave of this most interesting and badly treated animal.