Both male and female have a pair of glands lying lengthways on the inside of the skin at the lower extremities, which does not appear to be controlled as other organs are, but are emptied with the hand by a downward pressure. The secretion contained in these two bags is a solid from which oil is extracted and is completely emptied once each year. Close by every house a handful of dry grass is gathered up and the castorum deposited, then a few tail-fulls of mud are put on top of it. What this is done for I am not certain but think it is like a challenge or a sign that all trespassers will have to fight. When the bags are emptied in the fall the beaver visit jackpine forests and eat largely of the gum, I am told by the Indians, for the purpose of replenishing the castorum supply, and this is likely true, because the odor and character of the deposit is not unlike pine gum. Castorum has a peculiar attraction for all wild animals, and the Indians put it to account by using it as a trap scent. Another advantage it has is that though an oil substance it is of such a nature that when rubbed on iron traps and set under water it will not leave the trap and float up like all other oil substances will do. Commercially it is used as a body in perfumes, likely also on account of its being able to retain the perfume for such a long time.
(To be continued)
[G. L. Bellingham Won Way From Clerkship in Land Dept.]
Assistant Land Commissioner—A Man to Whom Accuracy is Next to Godliness—Has Earned Continuous Promotion Through 18 Years.
By B. A. EVERITT, Associate Editor
Mr. G. L. Bellingham, assistant to the land commissioner, hails from Wales but he has been so long in Canada and has for so many years dealt with H.B.C. farm lands that he knows his adopted country possibly better than his native soil. Mr. Bellingham is so intimately in touch with the Company's widespread land holdings that he can almost tell one the value, topography, the soil and the tonnage of wild hay on any H.B.C. parcel out of several thousand dotted over the prairie maps.
Likes to See a "Square Deal" All Round
Mr. Bellingham is keen, active and earnest, with a typical British temperament, which often reminds one that he is a fighting man all through—prepared to hold his own in any transaction. Those who know him best admire his faculty for getting at the "root of things" quickly and his insistence on absolute justice being meted out to all concerned.