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Canadian Beaver — Part 3
Images coming soon.
When in the course of years the beavers' colony gets so large that the matter of getting food for the whole in the immediate vicinity of the pond begins to look doubtful, the youngest generation usually starts off with the purpose of founding a new colony.
The trappers say that they always start off in pairs accompanied by the old ones; the time chosen for the pilgrimage is in the early part of the fall while the streams are still low and food abundant.
The little party explores together every promising stream and watercourse, until a suitable location is discovered for the new pond, when they all set to work, old and young together, and it is not until the dam is completed and the new cabin raised with a good supply of green wood beside it, that the old beavers go back to their own pond, to attend to the regular fall work of repairing the old dam and cabin and cutting and hauling their winter's wood down to the water, and then settle down to the dull routine and humdrum life of a beaver's winter.
Varieties of the Beaver
1. Canadian Beaver. Castor Canadensis Kuhl. Description and range as above.
2. Carolinian Beaver. C. canadensis carolinensis Rhoads. Some-what lighter in colour; larger in size with a decidedly broader tail.
Two other races occur in the northwest coast region and in the Rocky Mountains.