86 Ways of Wood Folk. 



and the work was done. When I found the place 

 they had a pond a mile wide to play in. Their house 

 was in a beautiful spot, under a big hemlock ; and 

 their doorway slanted off into twenty feet of water. 

 That site was certainly well chosen. 



Another dam that I found one winter when caribou- 

 hunting was wonderfully well placed. No engineer 

 could have chosen better. It was made by the same 

 colony the lynx was after, and just below where he 

 went through his pantomime for my benefit ; his 

 tracks were there too. The barrens of which I spoke 

 are treeless plains in the northern forest, the beds of 

 ancient shallow lakes. The beavers found one with 

 a stream running through it ; followed the stream 

 down to the foot of the barren, where two wooded 

 points came out from either side and almost met. 

 Here was formerly the outlet ; and here the beavers 

 built their dam, and so made the old lake over again. 

 It must be a wonderfully fine place in summer — two 

 or three thousand acres of playground, full of cran- 

 berries and luscious roots. In winter it is too shallow 

 to be of much use, save for a few acres about the 

 beavers' doorways. 



There are three ways of dam-building in general 

 use among the beavers. The first is for use on slug- 

 gish, alder-fringed streams, where they can build up 

 from the bottom. Two or three sunken loes form 



