i 4 o WATCHED BY WILD ANIMALS 



completed, a deep water pond had stored in it 

 the autumn harvest food for months. This 

 necessary work was completed a month before 

 the pond froze solid and several weeks before 

 the first snow. 



This main pond is off the stream, connecting 

 with it by a ditch through the side of another 

 pond, and will thus receive but little sediment. 

 But each year a layer of fine material will sift 

 in and settle on the bottom, making the pond 

 shallower. Although this pond will live longer 

 than most ponds it, too, will meet the common 

 fate be filled in with rich soil, be buried and 

 forgotten beneath grass, wild flowers, willows, 

 and groves of trees. 



Several times through the ice I saw the beav- 

 ers in the pond. A number of times I watched 

 them by the food pile cutting off sticks of ra- 

 tions. Other times they were swimming about 

 as though just having their daily cold bath. 



While the glassy ice covering of the pond was 

 still clear I once saw them at play in the water 

 beneath the ice; all nine. They wrestled in 

 pairs, they mixed in masses, they raced two and 

 three, they followed the leader circling and 

 criss-crossing. Now and then one dropped out, 

 rose against the under surface of the ice where 

 there was an air pocket, and here I suppose had 

 a few breaths and then resumed the play. 



