Writing of full grown beaver puts me in mind of those early trapping days, and the logic of a certain Indian. Then we used to pay so much a skin for beaver, and graded the skins as big, middling and small. In culling this man's skins I threw one into the pile of middling ones and he immediately said: "That's a big one," and I said it was not and compared it with several of the large ones. He, however, stoutly maintained it was a big one and said, "Look at the white men, there are big ones and small ones, but they are men the same." I stood corrected and placed the disputed skin with his better grown and developed relatives, the Indian gave an almost audible smile, and things went on amicably. On the watershed between the valley of the St. Lawrence and Hudson's Bay, marten are prime on the first of October. Beaver, otter and mink are prime on the 25th of October and fox and lynx the 15th of November. I have often seen the question asked in the H-T-T as to the time the several kinds of fur are prime in different localities, and the above dates can be depended upon for the latitude mentioned. It pays the trapper to have his trap-houses made and his traps hung up ready to set and bait immediately when the skins are prime. They are easily cleaned and command a much higher average, whereas if the majority of skins in a man's pack are unprimed or staged, it takes away from the value of the few really few good ones. The buyer, to get these few merchantable skins, has to put some kind of value on the culls to make a buy, but in reality the trader is only paying for the few good ones and the trapper loses the other skins. And who is to blame? Trappers have been told time and again that trapping too early in the season is against their best interests; nevertheless they go blindly on, killing the poor beasts that have little or no value, and then they marvel at the scarcity of the fur-bearing animals and the little return they have to show for a couple of months' hard work. No. If there is any line that wants protection and a cast iron union between the men connected with the industry, it is the fur trade. All are, or ought to be, interested in the keeping up of the supply and quality, the trapper, wholesale man and manufacturer alike. Let the last two unite and not buy unprime skins, and the former for want of a market would very soon hunt in season only. * * * In this northern country fur-bearing animals continue prime much longer than elsewhere. The trappers and hunters (Indians) only come down from the interior from the tenth of June, and all the way down to the end of the month. Thus the month of June is the fur buying month.