Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 25.djvu/29

Rh is the product of a gland of the beaver, of peculiar, disagreeable odor and bitter taste, known in medicine as castoreum, which has earned for itself considerable reputation as an antispasmodic and nervine, though of late years it has largely been superseded by remedies of more agreeable flavor; for some reason it proves very attractive to beaver, alluring alike both old and young of both sexes. A bit of peeled apple, or the bulb of the water-lily, is also used as "medicine," but is not considered as "taking."

Where the water is constantly ebbing and flowing, steel traps are frequently of little value, though under ordinary circumstances to be preferred. A trap requires some six inches of water over it, with still deeper water beyond, for the moment the beaver feels its jaws, which invariably grasp a foot or toe, he turns a somersault into the deeper pool in the vain hope to shake it off, and there drowns. But, should the water be deeper, he swims over the trap unharmed; if lower, he releases himself by amputation; and a beaver who once tastes the perils of a trap is not only ever careful of assuming a second risk of the kind, but seems to possess the faculty of warning his companions. When a trap is set before the dwelling, the channel leading to the door is found by sounding, and it is placed therein, guarded on each side by two stakes that preclude passing except by the dangerous path. It is placed a little nearer one stake, in order that any attempt to cut it will insure a fore-foot touching the pan; if the other stake is attacked, then a hind-foot is caught.

Sometimes, especially in winter, stakes are driven through the ice so as effectually to block up the entrance to the house, whose roof is then broken open, and the inmates dispatched. Again, the dam is cut in numerous places and traps are set in the openings, that the beaver may be caught while attempting to repair the breaches. But neither of these processes is in vogue with the true trapper, unless the colony be a very small one, as the animals are likely to have burrows in the banks that serve as store-houses into which they retire at the first alarm; and the loss of two or three of their number while repairing the dam will render the survivors extremely cautious and wary, perhaps cause them to migrate in a body.

The quickness with which a colony discovers a wholesale attempt against their peace is astonishing; yet if their numbers are undisturbed, or diminished but gradually, even the presence of civilization will not drive them from their haunts. To-day beaver are returning to streams in Michigan, long ago abandoned by their race, simply because they find themselves unmolested, the demand for beaver-peltry being slight, and the prices paid out of all proportion to the labor entailed in trapping. It has been said that, if a dam or house be once injured by the hand of man, the colony at once disappears. But that this is fallacious is proved by the following: Twenty-two miles from Marquette, Michigan, on the Carp River, a beaver colony began