So Ways of Wood Folk. 



one of those proverbial expressions that people accept 

 without comment or curiosity. It is about one-third 

 true, whicli is a generous proportion of truth for a 

 proverb. In winter, for five long months at least, he 

 does nothing but sleep and eat and keep warm. " Lazy 

 as a beaver " is then a good figure. And summer time 

 — ah! that 's just one long holiday, and the beavers 

 are jolly as grigs, with never a thought of work from 

 morning till night. When the snow is gone, and the 

 streams are clear, and the twitter of bird songs meets 

 the beaver's ear as he rises from the dark passage 

 under water that leads to his house, then he forgets 

 all settled habits and joins in the general heyday of 

 nature. The well built house that sheltered him from 

 storm and cold, and defied even the wolverine to dig 

 its owner out, is deserted for any otter's den or chance 

 hole in the bank where he may sleep away the sun- 

 light in peace. The great dam, upon which he toiled 

 so many nights, is left to the mercy of the freshet or 

 the canoeman's axe ; and no plash of falling water 

 through a break — that sound which in autumn or 

 winter brings the beaver like a flash — will trouble 

 his wise little head for a moment. 



All the long summer he belongs to the tribe of 

 Ishmael, wandering through lakes and streams wher- 

 ever fancy leads him. It is as if he were bound to 

 see the world after being cooped up in his narrow 



