CHARACTER STUDY OF A BEAVER. 519 



becoming- dark— too dark, indeed, for nie to distinouish much more 

 than the general form of the animal; so I left him to his thoughts, 

 intending to visit him again before the next setting of the sun. 



When the beavers were brought to the Zoo, they were given for 

 their new home an inclosure of perhaps 2 acres. This was part of a 

 very small but well-wooded valley, through which ran a stream of 

 insignificant size. It was so small that the beavers were unable to 

 swim in it, so they immediately commenced building a dam. To do 

 this, the trees, which up to this time were unprotected, were felled by 

 these industrious little woodcutters and engineers and the ])ranches cut 

 into convenient lengths so that they could be pushed or cirried to the 

 scene of their operations. These branches formed the main part of 

 the dam, while mud and roots dredged from the bottom of the stream 

 were used to fill in the holes, and render the entire struc-ture water- 

 tight. The upper part was carefully covered Avith mud which was 

 carried there in the animals' hands. To realize fully how much Avork 

 this required one nuist see for himself this dam, which contains prob- 

 ably more than 30 tons of material.^ It was soon found necessary to 

 protect the trees still remaining uncut (no tree of ordinary size is safe 

 from the beaver's teeth, stumps of trees 2 feet in diameter being fre- 

 quently found cut down by them), and these were covered near their 

 ])ases Avith heavy wire netting. But the beavers, nothing daunted, suc- 

 ceeded in cutting into the wood in spite of this precaution; so the net- 

 ting, supported l)}^ iron rods, was finally placed at a distance of several 

 inches from the tree trunk. In this way the trees were saved, but the 

 beavers still needed l)uilding material, as the dam was not yet large 

 enough to make their pond as they wished it. More branches were 

 therefore supplied, and cartful after cartful was used up before the 

 main dam and the three auxiliary dams were completed. It was late 

 summer by this time, and there was still a house to be built, and that, 

 too, with as little delay as possible. With the arrival of cold weather 

 all building operations must cease, as the mud becomes frozen and too 

 hard to work. The house, or lodge, as it is more properly named, is 

 outwardly a great mass of loose sticks, some of which from their size 

 might be called logs, filled in with earth and roots and plastered over 

 with mud. In the center there is less mud, the sticks and twigs form- 

 ing a partly closed flue, which serves as a ventilator. Inside the house 

 all is darkness: the walls are rough, but the floor, which is raised a 

 few inches above the level of the water, is firm and smooth, of fine 

 twigs beaten into the earth. I'he entrances— for there arc usually two 

 or more — are several feet beneath the surface of the water. What 

 impresses one on seeing the lodge and dams l)uilt ])y the beavei's in 

 the Zoo is the fact that in no way do they diflVr from those found in the 

 most remote parts of Canada. 



' This is but a rough guess, and is probably far short of the actual amount. 



