In September the Chief Engineer 

 returned to his home at Cherry Pond, 

 and there followed a season of great 

 activity among the beavers. Some of 

 their work we were privileged to see in 

 progress, all of it we saw after comple- 

 tion. The young beavers were now 

 about one third the size of their parents, 

 but they all worked. 



First, the entire family visited the 

 outlet of the pond, where the Chief 

 demonstrated to the others that with 

 the rocky stream bed and the accumu- 

 lated drift-wood, a dam would be un- 

 necessary to maintain water in the pond 

 at its present level. Next the house 

 must be enlarged to make room for a 

 family of six instead of two, as in the 

 previous winter. When completed, the 

 house was elliptical in shape, twenty- 

 two feet across its base in the short 

 diameter and thirty feet in its longer 

 dimension. It was also increased in 

 height to eight feet. The peeled sticks 

 piled up under the ice during the pre- 

 31 



