BEAVERS—THEIR WAYS. 55 
In all the years of my observation of the beavers and 
their ways I never knew of them being caught short 
on their winter’s feed unless it was a case where the 
ruthless hand of man brought distress on them by cut- 
ting out their dams or destroying their houses in mid- 
winter. 
With beavers in their natural state and as neighbors, 
a study of their every day habits, is both interesting 
and instructive to any one that has inclinations to be 
weatherwise or admiration for habits of industry with 
animal headwork as planner and animal muscle power 
as builder. The first work on their dams usually com- 
mence about the middle of September of each year in re- 
gions as far north as North Dakota. They first go tothe 
dam breasts and do a little repairing with mud or twigs 
after which they dredge out or dig any canals the situ- 
ation of the hour would warrant. By this time the old 
weather prognosticators had cast their horoscope for 
signs of the coming winter, and whatever the result, 
action followed. If severe cold snaps was expected 
early, work on the dams stopped for the time being 
that all hands could commence cutting down and drag 
in their willow brush and tree tops before ice formed in 
front of their water slides, which would bother and re- 
tard them in getting their feed in shape for winter stor- 
age. A winter without snow in the fore part of it, 
means water exposed to hard freezing weather and as 
a consequence thick ice that will freeze deep down in the 
beaver’s feed bed and give them much trouble the balance 
of the winter, if the same cannot be avoided. This is 
the reason that from warnings of a snowless winter the 
beavers raise the breasts of their dams from one to two 
