Note 1 — Chapter IV

These meadows are to be found within two or three miles of each other on almost every creek or small stream in Canada West. Those industrious animals, the beavers, build their dams across the creeks in a very ingenious manner, with clay and brush-wood. It is very astonishing what ingenuity they display, and what sagacity, almost amounting to reason, they show in the choice of situation for the erection of these dams. It has been asserted that some years ago, when the French were masters of the country, the Indians cut away the dams, and killed all the beavers they could possibly find, as they did not wish the reservoirs where the beavers bred to fall into the hands of their white brethren. The size of these meadows varies from two or three acres to two or three hundred, and in some few cases is much larger.