/•i 



TJic Home of the ]Voh>erene and Baiver. 



entirely of mud or earth, and smoothed off as 

 if plastered with a trowel, but as they never work 

 by daylight, it is still unknown how they perform 

 this. The mud covering is renewed every }'ear, 

 generally late in the autumn, when frost has set in, 

 and the ingredients becoming frozen in a solid 

 mass add much to the security of ^ the inmates, 

 protecting them from the wolverene, who, next 

 to man, is their worst enemy. 



The furniture of their houses is very simple, 

 consisting only of a bed for each member of the 

 family, formed of grass or the tender bark of young 

 trees, and placed against the side of the lodge, the 

 centre being left unoccupied. Every evening they 

 visit their dam and minutely examine it ; if a log is 

 washed away or displaced the mischief is at once 

 repaired, and fresh material is afforded by the sticks 

 stored for food. These are piled in front of the 

 lodges, and when the animal feels hungry he de- 

 taches a stick from the bundle, takes it inside, strips 

 off the bark, on which he feeds at his leisure, and 

 then carries the wood to the dam, should it need 

 repairs, or lets it float away, for the beaver is 

 scrupulously clean, and allows no litter or dirt to 

 accumulate within its abode, being in this respect a 

 model that many of its human enemies might study 

 with advantafje. 



