166 THE BEAVER. 



be called double or treble houses rather than houses 

 divided. Each compartment is inhabited by its own 

 possessors, who know their own door, and have no other 

 connection with their neighbours than a friendly inter- 

 course, or mutual assistance in the necessary labour of 

 building. 



" ' So far are the beavers from driving stakes, as some 

 have said, into the ground when building, that they lay 

 most of the wood crosswise and nearly horizontal, with- 

 out any order except that of leaving a cavity in the 

 middle; and when any unnecessary branches project, 

 they cut them off with their chisel-like teeth and throw 

 them in among the rest to prevent the mud from fall- 

 ing in. With this are mixed mud and stones, and the 

 whole is then compacted together. The bank affords 

 them the mud, or the bottom of the creek ; and they 

 carry it, as well as the stones, under their throats by 

 the aid of their fore paws. They drag along the wood 

 with their teeth. They always work during the night, 

 and have been known to have accumulated during a 

 single night as much mud as would amount to some 

 thousands of their little handfuls. 



"'Every fall they cover the outside of their houses with 

 fresh mud, and as late in the autumn as possible, even 

 when the frost sets in, as by this means it soon becomes 

 frozen as hard as a stone, and prevents their most for- 

 midable enemy, the wolverine or glutton, from disturb- 

 ing them during the winter. In laying on this coat of 

 mud, they do not make use of their broad flat tails, as 



