One September day I saw a number of beaver at work upon a half-finished house.  One part of the house had been carried up about two feet above the water, and against this were leaned numerous sticks, which stood upon the top of the foundation just above water-level.  After these sticks were arranged, they were covered with turf and mud which the beaver scooped from the bottom of the pond.  In bringing this earth covering up, the beaver invariably came out of the water at a given point, and over a short slide worn on the side of the house climbed up to the height where they were to deposit their load, which was carried in the fore paws.  Then they edged round and put the mud-ball upon the house.  From this point they descended directly to the water, but when they emerged with the next handful, they came out at the bottom of the slide, and again climbed up it.
 The beaver often does a large amount of work in a short time.  A small dam may be built up in a few nights, or a number of trees felled, or possibly a long burrow or tunnel clawed in the earth during a brief period.  In most cases, however, beaver works of magnitude are monuments of old days, and have required a long time to construct, being probably the work of more than one generation.  It is rare for a large dam or canal to be constructed in one season.  A thousand feet of dam is the accumulated work of years.  An aged beaver may have lived all his life in one locality, born in the house in which his parents were born, and he might rise upon the thousand-foot dam which held his pond and say, “My grandparents half a dozen centuries ago commenced this dam, and I do not know which one of my ancestors completed it.”
 Although the beaver is a tireless and an effective worker, he does not work unless there is need to do so.  Usually his summer is a rambling vacation spent away from home.  His longest period of labor is during September and October, when the harvest is gathered and general preparations made for the long winter.  Baby beavers take part in the harvest-getting, though probably without accomplishing very much.  During most winters he has weeks of routine in the house and ponds with nothing urgent to do except sleep and eat.
 He works not only tooth and nail, but tooth and tail.  The tail is one of the most conspicuous organs of the beaver.  Volumes have been written concerning it.  It is nearly flat, is black in color, and is a convenient and much-used appendage.  It serves for a rudder, a stool, a prop, a scull, and a signal club.  It may be used for a trowel, but I have never seen it so used.  It serves one purpose that apparently has not been discussed in print; on a few occasions I have seen a beaver carry a small daub of mud or some sticks clasped between the tail and the belly.  It gives this awkward animal increased awkwardness and even an uncouth appearance to see him humped up, with tail tucked between his legs, in order to clasp something between it and his belly.
 He is accomplished in the use of arms and hands.  With hands he is able to hold sticks and handle them with great dexterity.  Like any clawing animal he uses his hands or fore paws, to dig holes or tunnels and the excavate burrows and water-basins.  His hind feet are the chief propelling power in swimming, although the tail, which may be turned almost on edge and is capable of diagonal movement, is sometimes brought into play as a scull when the beaver is at his swiftest.  In the water beaver move about freely and apparently with the greatest enjoyment.  They are delightfully swift and agile swimmers, in decided contrast with their awkward slowness upon the ground.  They can swim two hundred yards under the water without once coming to the surface, and have the ability to remain under water from five to ten minutes.  On one occasion a beaver remained under water longer than eleven minutes, and came to the top none the worse, apparently, for this long period of suspended breathing.
 It is in standing erect that the beaver is at his best.  In this attitude the awkwardness and the dull appearance of all-fours are absent, and he is a statue of alertness.  With feet parallel and in line, tail and right angles to the body and resting horizontally on the ground, and hands held against the breast, he has the happy and childish eagerness of a standing chipmunk, and the alert and capable attitude of an erect and listening grizzly bear.
 The beaver is larger than most people imagine.  Mature male specimens are about thirty-eight inches in length and weigh about thirty-eight pounds, but occasionally one is found that weighs seventy or more pounds.  Ten mature males which I measured in the Rocky Mountains showed an average length of forty inches, with an average weight of forty-seven pounds.  The tails of these ten averaged ten inches in length, four and a half inches in width across the centre, and one inch in thickness.  Behind the shoulders the average circumference was twenty-one inches, and around the abdomen twenty-eight.  Ten mature females which I measured were only a trifle smaller.
 There are twenty teeth; in each jaw there are eight molars and two incisors.  The four front teeth of the beaver are large, orange-colored, strong, and have a self-sharpening edge of enamel.  The ears are very short and rounded.  The sense of smell appears to be the most highly developed of the beaver’s senses.  Next to this, that of hearing appears to be the most informational.  The eyes are weak.  The hind feet are large and webbed, and resemble those of a goose.  The second claw of each hind foot is double, and is used in combing the fur and in dislodging the parasites from the skin.  The fore paws of the beaver are handlike, and have long, strong claws.  They are used very much after the fashion in which monkeys use their hands, and serve a number of purposes.
 The color of the beaver is a reddish brown, sometimes shading into a very dark brown.  Occasional specimens are white or black.  The beaver is not a handsome animal, and when in action on the land he is awkward.  The black skin which covers his tail appears to be covered with scales; the skin merely has this form and appearance, the scales do not exist.  The tail somewhat resembles the end of an oar.
 The all-important tools of this workman are his four orange-colored front teeth.  These are edge-tools that are adaptable and self-sharpening.  They are set in strong jaws and operated by powerful muscles.  Thus equipped, he can easily cut wood.  These teeth grow with surprising rapidity.  If accident befalls them, so that the upper and the lower fail to bear and wear, they will grow by each other and in a short time become of an uncanny length.  I have found several dead beaver who had apparently died of starvation; their teeth overlapped with jaws wide open and thus prevented their procuring food.  For a time I possessed an overgrown tooth that was crescent shaped and a trifle more than six inches long.
 Pounds considered, the beaver is a powerful animal, and over a rough trail will drag objects of twice his own weight or roll a log-section of gigantic size.  Up a strong current he will tow an eighty- or one-hundred-pound sapling with out apparent effort. Three or four have rolled a one-hundred-and- twenty pound boulder into place in the dam.  Commonly he does things at opportune times and in the easiest way.  His energy is not wasted in building a dam where one is not needed nor in constructive work in times of high water.  He accepts deep water as a matter of fact and constructs dams to make shallow places deep.
 Beaver food is largely inner bark of deciduous or broad-leaved trees.  Foremost among these trees which they use for food is the aspen, although the cottonwood and willow are eaten almost as freely.  The bark of the birch, alder, maple, box-elder, and a number of other trees is also used.  Except in times of dire emergency the beaver will not eat the bark of the pine, spruce, or fir tree.  It is fortunate that the trees which the beaver fell and use for food or building purposes are water-loving trees, which not only sprout from both stump and root, but grow with exceeding rapidity.  Among other lesser foods used are berries, mushrooms, sedge, grass, and the leaves and stalks of a number of plants.  In winter dried grass and leaves are sometimes used, and in this season the rootstocks of the pond-lily and the roots of the willow, alder, birch, and other water-loving trees that may be got from the bottom of the pond.  Beaver are vegetarians; they do not eat fish or flesh.
 Apparently beaver prefer to cut trees that are less than six inches in diameter, and where slender poles abound it is rare for anything to be cut of more than four inches.  But it is not uncommon to see trees felled that are from twelve to fifteen inches in diameter.  In my possession are three beaver-cut stumps each of which has a greater diameter than eighteen inches, the largest being thirty-four inches.  The largest beaver-cut stump I have ever measured was on the Jefferson River in Montana, near the mouth of Pipestone Creek.  This was three feet six inches in diameter.
 The beaver sits upright with fore paws against the tree, or clasping it; half squatting on his hind legs, with tail either extending behind as a prop or folded beneath him as a seat, he tilts his head from side to side and makes deep bites into the tree about sixteen inches above the ground.  In the overwhelming majority of beaver-cut trees that I have seen, most of the cutting was done from one side,—from one seat as it were.  Though the notch taken out was rudely done, it was after the fashion of the axe-man.  The beaver bites above and below, then, driving his teeth behind the piece thus cut off, will wedge, pry, or pull out the chip.  Ofttimes in doing this he appears to use his jaw as a lever.  With the aspen, or with other trees equally soft, about one hour is required to gnaw down a four-inch sapling.  With one bite he will snip off a limb from half to three quarters of an inch in diameter.
 After a tree is felled on land, the limbs are cut off and the trunk is gnawed into sections.  The length of these sections appears to depend upon the size of the tree-trunk and also the distance to the water, the number of beaver to assist in its transportation, and the character of the trail.  Commonly a six- or eight-inch tree is cut into lengths of about four to six feet.  If the tree falls into the water of the pond or the canal, it is, if the limbs are not too long, transported butt foremost to the desired spot in its uncut, untrimmed entirety.  Ofttimes with a large tree the trunk is left and only the limbs taken.
 The green wood which the beaver uses for his winter’s food-supply is stored at the bottom of the pond.  How does he sink it to the bottom?  There is an old and oft-repeated tale which says that the beaver sucks the air from the green wood so as to sink it promptly.  Another tale has it that the beaver dives to the bottom carrying with him a green stick which he thrusts into the mud and it is thus anchored.  Apparently the method is a simple one.  The green wood stored is almost as heavy as water, and once in the pond it becomes water-logged and sinks in a short time; however, the first pieces stored are commonly large, heavy chunks, which are forced to the bottom by piling others on top of them.  Frequently the first few pieces of the food-pile consist of entire trees, limbs and all.  These usually are placed in a rude circle with butts inward and tops outward.  This forms an entangling foundation which holds in place the smaller stuff piled thereon.
 Most willows by beaver colonies are small and comparatively light.  These do not sink readily, are not easily managed, and are rarely used in the bottom of the pile.  Commonly, when these light cuttings are gathered into the food-pile, they are laid on top, where numerous up-thrusting limbs entangle and hold them.  The foundation and larger portion of the food-pile are formed of heavy pieces of aspen, alder, or some other stream-side tree, which cannot be moved out of place by an ordinary wind or water-current and which quickly sink to the bottom.
 Among enemies of this fir-clad fellow are the wolverine, the otter, the lion, the lynx, the coyote, the wolf, and the bear.  Hawks and owls occasionally capture a young beaver.  Beaver spend much time dressing their fur and bathing, as they are harassed by lice and other parasites.  At rare intervals they are afflicted with disease.  They live from twelve to fifteen years and sometimes longer.  Man is the worst enemy of the beaver.
 A thousand trappers unite to tell the same pitiable tale of a trapped beaver’s last moments.  If the animal has not succeeded in drowning himself or tearing off a foot and escaping, the trapper smashes the beaver’s head with his hatchet.  The beaver, instead of trying to rend the man with sharp cutting teeth, raises himself and with upraised hand tries to ward off the death-blow.  Instead of one blow, a young trapper frequently has to give two or three, but the beaver receives them without a struggle or a sound, and dies while vainly trying to shield his head with both hands.
 Justly renowned for his industry, the beaver is a master of the fine art of rest.  He has many a vacation and conserves his energies.  He keeps his fur clean and his house in a sanitary condition.  Ever in good condition, he is ready at all times for hard work and is capable of efficient work over long periods.  He is ready for emergencies.
 As animal life goes, that of the beaver stands among the best.  His life is full of industry and is rich in repose.  He is home-loving and avoids fighting.  His lot is cast in poetic places.
 The beaver has a rich birthright, though born in a windowless hut of mud.  Close to the primeval place of his birth the wild folk of both woods and water meet and often mingle.  Around are the ever-changing and never-ending scenes and silences of the water or the shore.  Beaver grow up with the many-sided wild, playing amid the brilliant flowers and great boulders, in the piles of driftwood and among the fallen logs on the forest’s mysterious edge.  They learn to swim and slide, to dive quickly and deeply from sight, to sleep, and to rest moveless in the sunshine; ever listening to the strong, harmonious stir of wind and water, living with the stars in the sky and the stars in the pond; beginning serious life when brilliant clouds of color enrich autumn’s hills; helping to harvest the trees that wear the robes of gold, while the birds go by for the southland in the reflective autumn days.  If Mother Nature should ever call me to live upon another planet, I could wish that I might be born a beaver, to inhabit a house in the water.
 
 

Directory of Stories by Enos A. Mills

Copyright 2001 Enos Mills Cabin, Temporal Mechanical Press
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