HARDY OX THE BEATER IN XOVA SCOTIA. 21 



as the first one alluded to, as seen on the sixteen mile brook, 

 and all similarly constructed in the interior ; wherefore the 

 following description of one which we unroofed, will suffice to 

 show the general construction of the edifice of the beaver in 

 Nova Scotia. 



It is a large and rather rudelj^ constructed pile of sticks, 

 mud, stones, and grass tufts, containing a chamber, and sloping 

 passage or passages leading into the latter from below the sur- 

 face of the water. The house has a very large diameter at the 

 base in comparison with its height, and instead of the regular 

 conical dome, smoothly plastered over with mud, which we see 

 so frequently drawn in works of natural history as representing 

 beaver houses, it presents the appearance of a great pile of 

 barked sticks, the shape of the mass far nearer resembling an 

 inverted saucer than a cup. The sticks, some of which are of 

 great length, are, on the top and exterior, thrown on rather 

 loosely. As you unpile them, however, and examine further 

 into the building, the work will be found better, and the sticks 

 laid horizontally, firmly bound in with mud-plaster, stones and 

 grass being interwoven throughout. The bed on which they 

 lie is at the back of the chamber, raised above the level of the 

 hall, as it may be termed. The sticks projecting towards 

 the interior are smoothly gnawed ofi", partipularly round the 

 bed, the bottom of which is covered with dry grass, or, where 

 this cannot be procured, with fibres of wood split with their 

 teeth into fine shreds. The chamber, and passage leading into 

 it, have a gentle slope upwards ; the bed is never under water 

 though the hall may be flooded. The dimensions of the houses 

 we observed were varied. A diameter of seventeen feet at the 

 base would entail a height of the dome above the water line of 

 four feet six inches, an interior diameter of about nine feet for 

 the chamber, the height of which was about three feet. In all 

 the houses there was but one chamber, though this was con- 

 nected with the water in some instances by several tunnels and 

 at diflerent levels, evidently intended to suit the level of the 

 water at different seasons, the lowest probabl}^ to be used when 

 the thickness of ice should debar entrance to the others. At 



