258 AMPHIBIOUS QUADRUPEDS. 



a vast number of apartments, that had a free com- 

 munication one with another. 



All these works, more especially in the northern 

 parts, are finished in August, or September at 

 farthest ; at which time they begin to lay in their 

 stores. During the summer, they are perfect 

 epicures, and regale themselves every day on the 

 choicest fruits and plants the country affords. 

 Their provisions, indeed, in the winter season, 

 principally consist of the wood of the birch, the 

 plane, and some few other trees, which they steep 

 in water, from time to time, in such quantities as 

 are proportioned to the number of inhabitants. 

 They cut down branches from three to ten feet 

 in length. Those of the largest dimensions are 

 conveyed to their magazines by a whole body of 

 beavers ; but the smallest by one only : each of 

 them, however, takes a different way, and has his 

 proper walk assigned him, in order that no one 

 labourer should interrupt another in the prosecu- 

 tion of his work. Their wood-yards are larger 

 or smaller in proportion to the number in the 

 family ; and, according to the observation of some 

 curious naturalists, the usual stock of timber, for 

 the accommodation of ten beavers, consists of 

 about thirty feet in a square surface, and ten in 

 depth. These logs are not thrown up in one 

 continued pile, but laid one across the other, with 

 intervals or small spaces between them, in order 

 to take out, with the greater facility, but just 

 such a quantity as they shall want for their im- 

 mediate consumption, and those parcels only 

 which lie at the bottom in the water, and have 



