saw these things himself. Happening one day to be above a beaver lodge, he heard the young ones crying, very much like the wailing of babies. The old beaver it appeared did not like so much noise, and to restore silence in his young family he took them one at a time and thrust them again and again under the water until they stopped. The observer was amazed.
Another time, a large beaver was caught in a trap. In such circumstances, they do not hesitate to bite off the foot that is caught, to release themselves. Wishing to be sure of his prey, our hunter had so arranged that the beaver could easily pull up the stake and drag off the trap together with its chain. The floating wood would serve as a buoy. He soon saw the beaver struggling near the bank he pulled his prey out of the water and took up a club to knock the creature on the head. The poor animal instinctively put up his paw to protect his head, uttering lamentations and cries like a human being. The hunter made a motion several times as if to strike him; each time, the beaver put up his paw to save himself and repeated his complaints. The man told me that if he could have got the animal out of the trap, he would have let him go; but he dreaded, and with reason, the beast's terrible teeth, which cut like a carpenter's chisel.
Beaver are still found all along the river, even in places quite near the new settlements of the whites; but in the end they disappear from such places. The beaver's instinct makes him seek the most retired spots, and it is on the least frequented forks of the rivers that their lodges are found in the greatest numbers. There they are more regularly built than on the banks of the great river. The streams -ire dammed with strong and high dikes, which make fine ponds for the animals. Instinct moreover warns them of spring droughts and of scarcity of rain and snow in the mountains; then they redouble their activity and triple their dikes, to make sure of having a sufficient quantity of water for summer. This is, to the Indians and people acquainted