Both the Indians and the trappers have a story that old beaver who will not work are driven from the colony and become morose outcasts, slowly living away the days by themselves in a burrow. I have no evidence to verify this statement, and am inclined to think that solitary beaver occasionally found in abandoned colony-sites and elsewhere are simply unfortunates, perhaps weighed down with age, unable to travel far, with teeth worn, the mate dead, without ambition to try, or without strength to emigrate. It is more likely that these aged ones voluntarily and sadly withdraw from their cheerful and industrious fellows, to spend their closing days alone. Although, too, there were among Indians and trappers stories of beaver slaves, I am without material for a story of this kind. The beaver is peaceful. Although the males occasionally fight among themselves, the beaver avoids fighting, and plans his life so as to escape without it. Now and then in the water one closes with an otter in a desperate struggle, and when cornered on land one will sometimes turn upon a preying foe with such ferocity and skill that his assailant is glad to retreat. On two occasions I have known a beaver to kill a bobcat. Beaver are not equally alert. In many cases this difference may be due to a difference in age or experience. Beaver have been caught with scars which show that they have been trapped before, a few even having lost two feet in escaping from traps. On the other hand, skillful trappers have found themselves after repeated trials, unable to catch a single beaver from a populous colony. Sometimes in colonies of this kind, the beaver even audaciously turned the traps upside down or contemptuously covered them with mud. Nor is the work of all beaver alike. The ditches which one beaver digs, the house one builds, or the dam one makes, may be executed with much greater speed and with more skill than those of a neighboring beaver. Many houses are crude and unshapely masses, many dams haphazard in appearance, while a few canals are crooked and uneven. But the majority do good work, and are quick to take advantage of opportunity, quick to adjust themselves to new conditions, or to use the best means that is available. Beaver probably have made numbers of changes in their manners, habits, and customs, and those changes undoubtedly have enabled them to survive relentless pursuit, and to leave descendants upon the earth.