120 THE DRAMA OF THE FORESTS 



floor rises from three to six inches above the water level, the 

 upper floor rises from four to eight inches above the lower floor. 

 The tunnels open in the lower floor and it is the lower floor or 

 level that is used as a drying place and a dining room. The 

 upper level, covered with a mattress of shredded wood, grass, 

 or moss, forms the living and sleeping half of the chamber. 

 Though in winter time most of their meals are eaten in the 

 house, the green, bark-covered sticks being brought into the 

 chamber through the straightest tunnel, the house is kept 

 quite clean and free of all rubbish or filth. In fact, beavers are 

 better housekeepers than some human beings I have known. 



A certain amount of ventilation is derived from a few little 

 chinks in the apex of the roof. During the first freezing nights 

 of late fall the beavers plaster the above-water dome of their 

 house with mud which they carry up between their forelegs 

 and chin from the lake bottom, and placing it upon the roof 

 of their house, spread it about in a thick coating, not with their 

 tails, but with their forefeet, where it soon freezes into so 

 solid a mass that it protects the inmates from the attacks of 

 both the severest winter weather and the most savage of four- 

 footed enemies. So strong indeed does the roof then become 

 that even a moose could stand upon it without it giving way. 

 While some writers doubt that beavers plaster the outside of 

 their house with mud, I wish to add that I have not only ex- 

 amined their houses before and after the plastering was done, 

 but on several moonlight nights I have actually sat within forty 

 feet of them and watched them do it. 



The winter supply of food, being mostly poplar bark, is 

 derived from the branches of green trees which the beavers cut 

 down in the autumn for that very purpose. While engaged in 

 gnawing down trees the beavers usually work in pairs — one 

 cutting while the other rests and also acts as a sentinel to give 

 warning in case an enemy approaches. While cutting down 

 trees they stand or sit in an upright position upon their hind 



