62 ROMANCE OF THE BEAVER 



lighter end is held in the teeth so that the remainder 

 hangs over the animal's shoulder. Sometimes the 

 beaver proceeds in this way on his hind feet only, 

 with his front feet or hands holding the branch. 

 Heavier logs are pulled or pushed either with the 

 head, chest or even the hips. Whether more than 

 one does this work I have never been able to assure 

 myself, but I think it is usual for a single beaver to 

 take complete charge of his own log, get it down 

 to the water as best he can, and then swim with it 

 to the wood pile, where he sinks it or places it on 

 the top, according to his own ideas. How the 

 sinking of the wood is done has given rise to many 

 fanciful tales. Some trappers firmly believe that 

 they suck the air out of the wood so that it will 

 easily sink. Anything more absurd would be hard 

 to imagine. As a matter of fact, all the hard 

 woods have a specific gravity nearly equal to that 

 of water, so it requires very little effort to take 

 them down. Many a time have I watched the 

 beaver swimming across their pond with a branch, 

 and on arriving at the food pile dive under water, 

 taking their branch with them. How they manage 

 to keep the wood from floating is somewhat difficult 

 to understand, but they succeed in doing so most 

 effectively. I have never seen the short, thick logs 

 carried down. They appear to be forced under 

 water by the weight of other material which is piled 

 on top of them. The size of the wood piles varies 

 according to the number of beaver who are expected 



