606 



AMERICAN FORESTRY 



SIZE OF A BEAVER HOUSE 



This photograph gives an excellent idea of the size and the stability of 

 the beaver house. It is built on the edge of a pond in southern Wis- 

 consin. 



half a mile to a good log cabin and I expected good 

 results. 



But again I was disappointed. I did indeed see 

 several beavers every evening but they nearly always 

 scented me and gave their plunge-and-slap danger 

 signal, which, at times, was taken up by a colony on 

 the other side of the lake until the resounding plunges 

 made a noise as if half a dozen concealed giants were 

 throwing rocks into the lake. Building a platform in 

 a jack pine did not bring better results; the beavers 

 always knew I was there. 



At last I discovered the source of my difficulties. 

 Towards evening the wind nearly always ceased and a 

 current of air set in flowing gently from the high bank 

 down to the lake. 



I now decided to make a large beaver house, lo- 

 cated on a poirit of land across the lake, the scene of 

 my investigations. An open grove of poplars covered 

 this point and I planned to build a comfortable plat- 

 form almost vertically above the beaver house by 

 connecting three of the trees by means of stout poles 

 and strong boards. On shore near my camp I built a 

 raft and a portable ladder and cut the poles and then 

 ferried poles, ladder and boards across. I adopted this 

 method in order to avoid unnecessarily alarming the 

 beavers by much cutting and hammering near their 

 house ; still it required four hours of hard work to 

 build my observatory. Having no companion and 

 working eight miles from the nearest settlement the 

 work did not lack a spice of danger. That evening, 

 knowing that the beavers would be alarmed, I re- 



mained quietly in camp observing the deer-mice in 

 the cabin and the snowshoe rabbits around the camp- 

 fire, both of which were more numerous than I have 

 ever known them before. 



The following day I paddled across the lake on my 

 raft in the middle of the afternoon. The raft enabled 

 me to avoid a long detour around the shore of the lake 

 where the going was extremely bad, especially after 

 dark, and it also made it possible for me to land at the 

 beaver point without noise. After dark, on the home- 

 ward trip, I steered for three white birches, near which 

 I tied my raft within half a mile of camp. At the end 

 of a week, however, the craft became so water-logged 

 that the stern travelled ten inches under water, but 

 as I did not have to travel in strong winds and big 

 waves, the raft remained a most convenient and fairly 

 safe transport. 



Having arrived at the beaver point I ascended to 

 my platform and waited.' About 6.20 I observed a line 

 of bubbles arising near the house and traveling rap- 

 idly into the lake, and about two hundred feet from 

 the house, as I had expected, a beaver came up at the 

 end of the bubble line. He scouted about, his nose 

 turned toward the shore, but found nothing to alarm 

 him. Soon another beaver left the house. I could see 

 his dark body under the water but he caused neither 

 ripples nor bubbles. He also, after rising, sniffed the 

 shore, but in another direction, and like his fellow was 

 not alarmed. A little later a half grown beaver cau- 

 tiously put his head out among the poles at the edge 



BEAVER HOUSE IN WINTER 



This house was deserted for several years. Late in the fall a colony 

 whose pond had been drained by a poacher repaired the house, hurriedly 

 pickled a large amount of brush and occupied the house. 



