212 WATCHED BY WILD ANIMALS 



I had glimpses of the beavers' eager digging 

 through the clear spots in the ice. They tore 

 the root-filled section to pieces and devoured 

 all that it contained. But not until the fol- 

 lowing summer, when the broken dam released 

 the water, did I realize how deeply and com- 

 pletely the bottom of the pond had been stirred 

 and ploughed. I have seen gardens uprooted by 

 hogs, and mountain meadows dug to pieces by 

 grizzly bears, but neither of them equalled this. 



The supply of roots ran out and the bark of 

 the green aspens was eaten off, and still this 

 mountain region was white with winter and the 

 pond locked and sealed with ice. Beavers are 

 strict vegetarians. There were trout in the 

 pond, but these were not caught; nor were the 

 bodies of the starved ones eaten, as sometimes 

 occurs among other animals. The beavers must 

 escape from their now foodless prison or perish. 



Spring examinations which I made indicated 

 that they had tried to escape through the long 

 tunnel which had been made to obtain the as- 

 pens, but this had nearly filled with ice. They 

 had then driven several feet of a new tunnel, 

 but evidently found they could not accomplish 

 it through the frozen, gravelly earth. Beavers 

 are engineers the handling of earth in building 

 dams or in the making of canals is as much in 

 their line as tree felling but cutting and tun- 



