Lazy as a Beaver

1899

A writer in Forest and Stream declares that a visit to a beaver village shattered some of his long-cherished opinions. He had always heard beavers praised as models of industry, and he found that they were shirks. Worse still, not a beaver could he discover that used his tail as a trowel in building. It was hard indeed to see the early teachings of school and text-book so disproved. Nevertheless, he found his visit to the beaver settlement, near one of the Hudson Bay Company's posts, very interesting.

This northern country is completely covered with a network of lakes and rivers, and with a canoe it is possible to travel anywhere.

At length we reached a little lake, on whose shores we landed. Near us was a small clearing, and toward this we quietly advanced. From its appearance one would have supposed that a gang of woodchoppers had recently been engaged here. Creeping quietly forward, we caught sight of the rising village. Some of the houses were finished, while others were nearly so. A few of the beavers were leisurely building with poplar sticks and mud, but the majority appeared to be taking a holiday.

The houses are dome-shaped, and may have served as models for the huts of the Eskimos farther north. More interesting than the houses were the beavers themselves, ranging in size from the ten-pound kitten to the full-grown adult, which would probably weigh fifty pounds or more.

The tail of the beaver is about one foot long and is well adapted to its use as a rudder. The feet are well worth notice, the front ones being small and flexible and the hind ones closely webbed.

The incisors are important to the beaver, for it is with these that he cuts the material for his food, his hut, and the dam, if there be one. His food in winter consists of the bark of the birch, poplar or willow, which he has stored up during the summer and autumn. In summer he feasts on the young shoots and the juicy root-stalks of the many water-plants that surround his home.

Altogether he is a social and contented little animal. He has furnished the Hudson Bay Company with thousands of dollars, moralists with many valuable illustrations, and Canada itself with a national emblem. — Youth's Companion.