Prowling hunters have compelled most beaver 

 to work at night, but the Spruce Tree Colony 

 was an isolated one, and occasionally its members 

 worked and even played in the sunshine. Each 

 day I secluded myself, kept still, and waited ; and 

 on a few occasions watched them as they worked 

 in the light. 



One windy day, just as I was unroping myself 

 from the shaking limb of a spruce, I saw four 

 beaver plodding along in single file beneath. 

 They had come out of a hole between the roots 

 of the spruce. At an aspen growth about fifty feet 

 distant they separated. Though they had been 

 closely assembled, each appeared utterly obliv- 

 ious of the presence of the others. One squatted 

 on the ground by an aspen, took a bite of bark 

 out of it, and ate leisurely. By and by he rose, 

 clasped the aspen with fore paws, and began to 

 bite chips from it systematically. He was delib- 

 erately cutting it down. The most aged beaver 

 waddled near an aspen, gazed into its top for a 

 few seconds, then moved away about ten feet and 

 started to fell a five-inch aspen. The one rejected 

 was entangled at the top. Presently the third 



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