Beaver Work 



water, and then Pine Stream making its tortuous 

 way through an untraveled region to the Penob- 

 scot. The nearest beavers, a colony of four lodges 

 which I unearthed on a hidden branch of Pine 

 Stream, were twelve or fifteen miles away, as the 

 water flowed; yet over all that distance an ex- 

 ploring family had made its lonely way, guided at 

 every turn by the flavor of distant springs, till one 

 after another they crept under the fallen log and 

 entered my pond, which was solitary enough to 

 satisfy even their pioneer instincts. They had 

 first picked a site for their new lodge, on a point 

 overlooking the lower half of the pond, and had 

 then gone back to the outlet to raise the water. 



Their dam was a rare piece of wild engineering; 

 so much I had to confess, even while I wished that 

 the beavers had chosen some other place to dis- 

 play their craft. Finding where the water escaped, 

 they stopped the opening beneath the log, and 

 made a bank of mud and alder-brush above it. 

 This bank was carried out a dozen feet or more on 

 either side of the stream, the ends being bent 

 forward (toward the pond above) so as to make 

 a very fine concave arch. On a small or quiet 

 stream like this, beavers almost invariably build 

 a straight dam; and where swift water calls for a 

 stronger or curving structure, they present the 

 convex side to the current; but here they had 



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