BEAVER LODGES AND BURROWS. 1G5 



and California, remarks: ''The sides of these streams 

 are lined with their habitations, though we never saw 

 their houses, and seldom a dam; but usually their 

 burrows penetrated the sides of the streams, a suffi- 

 ciently large and long excavation being made to form 

 warm, roomy, and comfortable quarters. We found 

 the beavers in numbers, of which, when applied to 

 beavers, I had no conception."^ 



The burrows of beavers inhabiting river banks are 

 said to be occasionally detected by a small pile = of 

 beaver cuttings found heaped up in a rounded pile, a 

 foot or more high, at the extreme end of each burrow. 

 It is affirmed by the trappers, and with some show of 

 probability, that this is a contrivance of the beavers 

 to keep the snow loose over the ends of their burrows, 

 in the winter season, for the admission of air. I have 

 never seen these miniature lodges, and therefore can- 

 not confirm the statement, either as to their existence 

 or use ; but if, in fact, they resort to this expedient, 

 it is another reason for inferring that the lod,2"e was 

 developed from the burrow with the progress of ex- 

 perience. It is but a step from such a surface-pile of 

 sticks to a lodge, with its chamber above ground, with 

 the previous burrow as its entrance from the pond." A 

 burrow accidentally broken through at the upper end, 

 and repaired with a covering of sticks and earth would 

 lead to a lodge above ground, and thus inaugurate a 

 beaver lodge out of a broken burrow. 



^ Explorations for a Railroad Route, etc. to the Pacific. VI. 

 Zoology, 258. 



^ The Ojibwas call a burrow 0-wazhe, whence the name 

 "wash," commouly used by the trappers to denote a beaver 

 burrow. 



