The Builders. 8 1 



quarters all winter. Even the strong family ties, 

 one of the most characteristic and interesting things 

 in beaver life, are for the time loosened. Every 

 family group when it breaks up housekeeping in the 

 spring represents five generations. First, there are 

 the two old beavers, heads of the family and absolute 

 rulers, who first engineered the big dam and houses, 

 and have directed repairs for nobody knows how long. 

 Next in importance are the baby beavers, no bigger 

 than musquashes, with fur like silk velvet, and eyes 

 always wide open at the wonders of the first season 

 out ; then the one- and two-year-olds, frisky as boys 

 let loose from school, always in mischief and having 

 to be looked after, and occasionally nipped ; then 

 the three-year-olds, who presently leave the group 

 and go their separate happy ways in search of mates. 

 So the long days go by in a kind of careless summer 

 excursion ; and when one sometimes finds their camp- 

 ing ground in his own summer roving through the 

 wilderness, he looks upon it with curious sympathy. 

 Fellow campers are they, pitching their tents by 

 sunny lakes and alder-fringed, trout-haunted brooks, 

 always close to Nature's heart, and loving the wild, 

 free life much as he does himself. 



But when the days grow short and chill, and the 

 twitter of warblers gives place to the honk of passing 

 geese, and wild ducks gather in the lakes, then the 



