100 NATURAL HISTORY. 



upon quite a slender piece of wood, with the trunk both above and below this tapered off into the 

 form of two cones, united by their apices. The work is done as sharply and neatly as if the wood had 

 been cut away by a chisel ; and the animals are said to have the sagacity to weaken the trunk more 

 on the side that looks towards the water than on the opposite side, by which means, when it falls, it 

 will generally do so in the direction of the water, which materially facilitates the further operations 

 of the Beavers. The quantity of trees cut down by them in this way is very great, so that in the 

 neighbourhood of a Beaver encampment the ground is everywhere full of the stumps which they 

 have left. 



These tree trunks are then cut up into lengths of five or six feet, which, after their bark has 

 been stripped off and eaten, are employed in the formation of a lodge, to serve as a shelter for the 

 company of Beavers forming it. Access to the lodge is obtained by means of several subterranean 

 passages, which always open under water, and lead up into the chamber occupying the interior of the 

 lodge. The lodge is usually of an oven-like shape, and is built close to the edge of the water ; its walls 

 are very thick, and composed of the above-mentioned trunks of trees, plastered over with mud, clay, 

 &c., mixed with grasses and moss, until the whole fabric measures from twelve to twenty feet in 

 diameter, and forms a hill some six or eight feet high. The larger lodges are in the interior about 

 seven feet in diameter, and between two and three feet high ; and the floor of this spacious chamber 

 is covered with fine chips of wood, grasses, and the soft bark of trees, which serve to form the beds 

 of the occupants. Occasionally the lodges are said to contain store-rooms. In front of the lodge, 

 according to Audubon, the Beavers scratch away the mud of the bottom until they make the water 

 deep enough to enable them to float their pieces of timber to this point, even when the water is 

 frozen : and, communicating with this, a ditch surrounds the lodge, which is also made so deep that 

 it will not readily freeze to the bottom. Into this ditch, and the deep water in front of the lodge, 

 the passages by which access to the water is obtained always open, and thus the inhabitants can 

 at any time make 'their way out when their business requires them to do so. In the neighbourhood 

 of the lodge the timber cut into lengths, as above described, is piled up, so as to furnish a supply of 

 food as it is required ; and the pieces of timber, after being stripped of their bark, are usually 

 employed by the Beavers either in repairing their lodges or in constructing or strengthening the 

 dams which they very frequently throw across the streams haunted by them. These dams, which 

 are destined to keep the water of variable streams up to the necessary height for the convenience of 

 the Beaver, are wonderful pieces of work, and almost justify the marvellous stories told of its intelli- 

 gence and sagacity by the older writers. They are often of great length sometimes 150 or 200 

 yards and more and run across the course of the brook inhabited by the Beavers sometimes 

 in a straight line, sometimes in a curved form, according to peculiarities in the ground or the stream, 

 and the exigencies of the engineers. They are composed, like the lodges, of lengths cut from the 

 trunks and branches of trees, filled in with smaller sticks, roots, grasses, and moss, and all plastered 

 with mud and clay in a most workmanlike manner, until the whole structure becomes quite water- 

 tight. Their height is from six to ten feet, and their thickness at the bottom sometimes as much as 



o o r 



double this, but diminishing upwards by the slope of the sides until the top is only from three to five 

 feet wide. These dams convert even small rivulets into large pools of water, often many acres in 

 extent ; and in districts where Beavers abound these pools may occupy nearly the whole course of a 

 stream, one above the other, almost to its source. Their use to the Beavers, as constantly furnishing 

 them with a sufficiency of water in which to carry on their business, and especially to float to their 

 lodges the tree trunks necessary for their subsistence, is easily iinderstood ; but it is a more remark- 

 able circumstance that by this means the Beavers exercise a considerable influence upon the external 

 appearance of the locality inhabited by them, which may persist even long after they have themselves 

 disappeared. In and about the pools the constant attacks of the Beavers upon the trees produce 

 clearings in the forest, often many acres in extent ; at the margins of the pools the formation of peat 

 commences, and under favourable circumstances proceeds until the greater part of the cleared space 

 becomes converted into a peat-moss. These peaty clearings are known as Beaver-meadows, and they 

 have been detected in various countries where the Beaver is now extinct. 



As in the case of the majority of Rodents, the cliief activity of the Beaver is nocturnal ; and it is 

 only when driven from its lodge by a high flood, or in the wildest and most sequestered localities, that 



