364 THE HAEMONIES OF NATURE. 



water and ice ; and as the trees employed in constructing it 

 generally take root and shoot up, it forms in time a green hedge 

 in which the birds build their nests. 



By means of these erections the water is kept at a sufficient 

 height, for it is absolutely necessary that there should be at 

 least three feet of water above the entrance of the lodge, 

 without which, in the hard frosts, it would be entirely closed ; 

 for the entrance is not on the land-side, but always under water, 

 so as to secure the inmates from the attacks of wild animals. 



The lodges, each of which is made large enough to contain 

 about four old and six or eight young ones, are erected either 

 along the dyke or on the banks of the river or lake, and plas- 

 tered over with mud, which soon freezes as hard as stone, and 

 prevents the wolverine from disturbing them during the winter. 

 They are built of the same materials as the dam, of an oval or 

 beehive shape, and of a diameter of six or seven feet. The 

 interior forms only a single chamber, resembling an oven ; and 

 at a little distance is the magazine for provisions, where they 

 keep in store the roots of the yellow waterlily and the branches 

 of the black spruce, the aspen, and the birch, which they are 

 careful to plant in the mud. Their magazines .sometimes con- 

 tain a cartload of these articles, and the beavers are so indus- 

 trious that they are always adding to their store. They convey 

 the mud and stones with their small forepaws, holding their 

 load close up between them under their throat, while they always 

 drag the wood with their teeth. 



When the beavers settle on the banks of a stream, they cut 

 their wood above the spot which they have selected for their 

 lodges, and use the current to convey it where it is wanted. 

 The precautions they take in felling trees are truly wonderful. 

 When the trunk has been cut all round and is near its fall, 

 they measure every bite, so that it must necessarily fall into the 

 water, and not towards the land, which would render all their 

 labour useless. Thus, throughout all the building operations of 

 the beaver, we find an attention paid to physical laws which 

 is not always displayed in the works of human architecture. 



The ondatra, musquash, or muskrat, a rodent common 

 throughout Canada and the Hudson's Bay territories, and well 

 known in England by its valuable fur, so greatly resembles the 

 beaver in its way of life, that the Indians, who are keen ob- 



