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SOME BROOK LOVING ARCHITECTS 



335 



opposite from this house is a pile of sticks beneath the water, built 

 up from the bottom of the pond. This may be an abandoned 

 foundation, but I doubt it ; it is more likely a store for winter, for 

 the beaver is a provident fellow and gets his stock in early. 



I am going to describe only one of the houses as they were all 

 very much alike in every respect. It looks at first glance like a 

 pile of wood all thrown together in a disorderly heap. It is 

 circular at the base, about seven feet in diameter, and about three 

 feet above the base at its highest point, which is the middle of the 

 roof. The sticks are not laid together in any apparent order, but 

 are so crossed and chinked with moss and mud as to make a very 

 strong structure . If in the 

 building of it, a stick pro- 

 jects too far in to the 

 interior it is simply gnawed 

 off from inside. One day I 

 took a party of seven boys 

 from camp to visit the 

 beaver colony, and all eight 

 of us stood together on the 

 roof; our combined ener- 

 gies in springing up and 

 down resulted only in mak- 

 ing it "give" ever so little. 



Surely, you would think, 

 the roof must be very 

 thick! Well, let us see. 



Without much difficulty I tore out a few sticks and some moss 

 and mud, and to my great surprise found that the wall was 

 only about six or eight inches thick! Inside was a single room. 

 About half the floor was occupied with a sort of platform at the 

 water level, where were the crumbs of the last lunch, a few silky 

 shreds of white birch bark. Perhaps we interrupted the maid in 

 her work; few of them would stop for a few crumbs with the roof 

 being torn away above them! The edge of this platform went 

 down a sudden step for about a foot, and then another deeper step 

 down to where the entrance must have been. This is indeed a 

 dark house, especially in winter, when thick ice covers the ponds. 

 And crowded quarters it must be too, for a family of five or six. 

 If they spend the day in such darkness and come abroad mostly at 



The beaver houses and the water garden 



