WINTER MOUNTAINEERING 57 



the woodpecker give a call. I wondered if these 

 fellow food hunters also all lodged in one many- 

 roomed apartment house. 



Coming one day to a beaver pond I scraped off 

 the snow and looked through the clear ice into the 

 water. Two or three beavers were swimming. 

 The water between the ice and the bottom of the 

 pond was about two feet deep. Each autumn the 

 beavers pile ample winter supplies in deep water 

 close to the house. The pond may freeze over, 

 but this ice covering is a protection. The house 

 entrance is on the bottom of the pond beneath the 

 ice, and the floor is above the level of the pond. 

 The water in the lower part of the house does nor 

 freeze. The beaver residents were here having a 

 comfortable time while deer in near-by woods were 

 floundering in the snow. I have known deer to 

 have a hard time of it in winter. Commonly deer 

 winter in lower altitudes, but sometimes they stay 

 in the middle mountain region and worry through 

 the snowy weeks by yarding — that is, a number 

 remaining in one small area, where through daily 

 trampling they keep on top of the snow and still 

 find enough to eat. 



A number of animals hibernate. Fat wood- 

 chucks live in a den five or six feet below the sur- 

 face. Storms may come and go, but the wood- 

 chuck sleeps till the first flowers wake. The 

 grizzly and black bear spend frorn three to five 

 months in heavy, hibernating sleep. 



