Beaver
Along the shores of sluggish streams, of lonely lakes and ponds, you may see the beaver, the muskrat, very rarely the otter, and sometimes an ugly little, long-bodied animal belonging to the marten family called the fisher. These are all interesting, each in its own way, and well worth hours of quiet observation. The beaver, otter, and fisher choose wild, secluded places for their homes, but the muskrat may be found also in the marshes of farm lands. On the edges of our Long Island meadows the boys trap muskrats for their skins.
You will find the beaver house in the water close to the shore and overlapping it. Though strongly and carefully built, it looks very much like a jumble of small driftwood, with bleached sticks well packed together, and the ends standing out at all angles. The sticks are stripped of their bark and the house gleams whitely against the dark water. The houses vary in size, some being built as high as five feet. The beaver is rarely seen early in the day, most of his work is done at night, so the best time to watch for him is just before dusk or perhaps an hour before sundown. It is not well to wait to see the beaver if your trail back to camp is a long one, leading through dense forests. You would far better postpone making its acquaintance than to risk going over the, perhaps, treacherous paths after dark. Night comes early in the woods and darkness shuts down closely while it is still light in the open. If your camp is near the beaver house or beaver dam, or if your trip can be made by water, then, with no anxiety about your return, you can sit down and calmly await the coming of this most skilful of all building animals, and may see him add material to his house, or go on with his work of cutting down a tree, as a reward for your patience.
Fish-Hawk, Osprey
On the shore you will also find the fish-hawk, or osprey; a well-mannered bird he is said to be, who fishes diligently and attends strictly to his own business. The fish-hawk's nest will generally be at the top of a dead tree where no one may disturb or look into it, though, as the accompanying photograph shows, it is sometimes found on rocks near the ground. The young hawks have a way of their own of defending themselves from any climbing creature, and to investigators of the nest the results are disastrously disagreeable as well as laughable. As the intruder climbs near, the baby birds put their heads over the sides of the nest and empty their stomachs upon him. This is vouched for by a well-known writer who claims to have gone through the experience.
The female osprey is larger and stronger than the male. On slowly moving wings she sails over the water, dropping suddenly to clutch in her strong talons the fish her keen eyes have detected near the surface of the water. Fish are fish to the osprey and salt waters or fresh are the same to her. I have watched the bird plunge into the waves of the ocean, on the coast of Maine, to bring out a cunner almost too large for her to carry, and I have seen her drop into the placid waters of an Adirondack lake for lake-trout in the same manner.
Blue Heron
The great blue heron is one of the shore folk and his metallic blue-gray body gleams in the sunlight, as you sight him from your canoe, standing tall and slim, a lonely figure on the bank. He flies slowly and majestically, with his long legs streaming out behind. When out in a small boat on Puget Sound a large heron escorted us some distance. As we rowed near the shore he would fly ahead and then wait for us, standing solemnly on a stone in the water or a partially submerged log, to fly again as we approached.
