REBUILDING A BEAVER COLONY 127 



Beavers, like people, occasionally settle in 

 scenes formerly occupied by their kind, and 

 build among the ruins of the long ago. Many 

 a beaver colony, like many an ancient city, has 

 one or more cities buried beneath it. 



A few days after seeing the big old beaver at 

 work on the dam I discovered him digging in a 

 canal all alone. Tracks showed that other 

 beavers had been working in the canal, but 

 just why this one was so bold and showed him- 

 self during the daytime I could not guess. 



That these beavers were at work on a canal 

 left no doubt about their having come to stay. 

 Meantime, the beavers occupied the old house 

 and pond while making this canal and doing 

 other pioneer settlement work. They cleaned 

 it out and patched it up for a temporary camp 

 only. 



A canal is one of the best exhibitions of beaver 

 skill. About twenty feet of this canal was fin- 

 ished and it was about three feet wide and 

 eighteen inches deep. It began in the north- 

 east corner of the old pond and was being dug 

 across a filled-in grass-grown pond which had 

 been washed full of mud and sand. It pointed 

 at an aspen grove out in the pines two hundred 

 feet away. It was probable that this canal 

 would be dug as close as possible to the aspen 

 grove, then the canal filled with water from 



