110 THE BEAVER. 



grand work of the Beaver, the intention uniformly is, that 

 the little habitation of each family should be rendered more 

 commodious. 



This habitation is always furnished with two passages, 

 one for the purpose of a land, and the other of a water ex- 

 cursion. In shape it is almost always either oval or round ; 

 sometimes it is from four to five feet in diameter, and 

 sometimes it consists of two, and even three stones, while 

 the walls are always two feet thick. When it happens to 

 consist of but one story, the walls are but a few feet high, 

 over which there is a kind of vault, that terminates the 

 edifice, and serves as a covering for it. It is constructed 

 with such solidity as to be impenetrable to the heaviest 

 rains, to defy the most impetuous winds, and is plastered 

 with such neatness, both outwardly and inwardly, that one 

 might actually suppose it to be the work of man. These 

 animals, nevertheless, use no instrument for the prepara- 

 tion of their mortar, but their feet, or for the application of 

 it, but their tails. They chiefly use such materials as are 

 not easily dissolved by water. Their wooden work con- 

 sists of such trees as grow on the banks of rivers, as these 

 are most easily cut down, stripped of their bark and carried ; 

 and all these operations they perform before they relinquish 

 a tree which they have once attacked. They cut it at the 

 distance of a foot or a foot and a half from the ground. 

 They sit as they work ; and, beside the advantage of this 

 convenient posture, they have the pleasure of continually 

 gnawing fresh bark and soft wood, both which they prefer 

 to most other kinds of aliment. Averse to dry wood, they 

 always provide an ample store of these for their subsistence 

 during the winter. The space allotted for the provision of 

 eight or ten Beavers occupies from twenty-five to thirty 

 feet square, and from eight to ten feet deep. It is near 

 their habitations that they establish their magazines ; and 

 to each hut or cabin there is one allotted, of a size propor- 

 tioned to the number of its inhabitants, to which they have 



