Adirondack Beaver 181 



the vagaries of the animals themselves may determine. There is 

 no reason to suppose that the beaver selects the site of the dam with 

 conscious intent or a knowledge of what the effect will be if it is 

 placed here or there. 



Canals. In some situations the beaver digs canals of varying 

 length which probably serve mainly for transportation purposes. 

 Where beaver ponds are bordered by open meadow land the tend- 

 ency to construct canals seems to be most often displayed. Possibly 

 the animal's reluctance to go overland is partly responsible for the 

 habit. The canal gives it not only easier means of transportation 

 but greater security in passing back and forth from its foraging 

 grounds. The canals vary from a foot to a yard or more in width, 

 ten inches to two or three feet in depth and from a few yards to 

 four or five hundred feet in length. The earth is dug out with the 

 fore feet and deposited on the banks, and not infrequently the even- 

 ness and uniformity of the whole gives it the appearance of having 

 been done by human hands. Some canals that I have seen in stony, 

 unsuitable ground were so narrow that they must have greatly 

 increased rather than diminished the difficulty of transporting 

 boughs. Channels are often dug in shallow ponds in order to secure 

 sufficient depth of water for freedom of movement and transporta- 

 tion. Such channels of course are not usually in evidence except 

 where the water level has fallen, when the bottom of the pond may 

 be seen to be traversed by them in various directions. 



The Lodge or House. The home of the beaver is either a den at 

 the end of a burrow in the bank, or a "house" or lodge (figure 35, 

 36). The lodge is similar to that of the muskrat but is made of 

 sticks instead of reeds or grasses. There are as a rule two entrances 

 to the lodge and they are under water. In the fall of the year the 

 beaver often brings up mud from the bottom of the pond and daubs 

 it upon the outside of the lodge in more or less haphazard fashion. 

 With additions from time to time a lodge may after a few years 

 become pretty well plastered all over with mud. From my personal 

 observations I should say that as a general rule the beaver adds at 

 least some mud here and there on the lodge, but I have never seen 

 any uniform application of it all over the structure during any one 

 season. One lodge which I happened upon in the Adirondacks had 

 just been started and had a number of daubs of fresh mud in among 

 the freshly cut boughs of which it was being built. 



The interior of a beaver lodge is a more or less dome-shaped 



