BEAVERS’ HOUSES—BAILEY 359 
The beds are simply the floor of the house, a few inches above the 
water-level, usually strewn with bits of bark, grass, or roots left 
from the food, and are always damp but clean and well drained, 
generally somewhat musky with the not unpleasant odor of the musk 
glands. Fresh food is constantly being brought in and eaten, and 
the peeled sticks and refuse carried out. If the water rises the 
floor is built up, and if it falls the floor may be lowered to keep 
the beds near the water door. With newly born young in the house 
there is a softer bed of grass, leaves, twigs, and rootlets that serve 
also as food when the young are old enough to begin eating, prob- 
ably long before they take the deep dive and long swim out to the 
world of light. 
The large water door, usually but one, opens at one end or side of 
the floor, straight down into the water below the walls of the house, 
then leads out to the open lake, pond, or stream, often a distance 
of 10 or 20, and sometimes 40 feet before the beavers can come to 
the surface. Upon leaving the house the beavers rarely come to the 
surface near by, and often swim out 10 or 20 rods under -water be- 
fore coming to the surface to look around, or, if frightened, they may 
go half a mile or more under water and them come up under cover 
of the bank or shore vegetation, or enter another house or bank 
burrow. In returning to the house, if unafraid, they often swim 
up to within 4 or 5 rods and then go under water the rest of the 
way. Often by lying quietly near the house one can hear them go 
gurgling out through the water hole, then hear them come bubbling 
up into the nest chamber again and, if they have brought in food, 
hear the big chisel teeth scrape, scrape, scrape, as the bark is peeled 
off and eaten. When young are in the house their whimpering cries 
can often be heard from outside. 
Most of the building and other work of the beavers is done at 
night so that only by long and patient waiting can one see even a 
small part of it being done, and the camera, even by flashlight, 
records but little of their nocturnal industry. Sometimes late in the 
evening or in the early morning twilight they may be seen cutting 
and dragging or towing trunks and branches for building material, 
and with their strong teeth dragging them up on the sides of the 
house and placing them as desired, or coming up from deep water 
with fore legs full of dripping mud, sticks, and leaves from the 
bottom, then rising to an almost erect position on the strong hind feet 
as they march up the steep slopes, steadied by the broad tails, to 
deposit their loads on the sides or tops of the houses. 
Still more rarely does one get a glimpse of the interior structure 
of the beaver house, except in its early stages when, from a mere 
bed in the sphagnum moss, under the grass and low shrubs beside 
the water door, can it be watched until securely roofed over. On one 
