REBUILDING A BEAVER COLONY 133 
end full of water. A spring concealed among 
the willows forty feet above had been used. From 
the spring a small ditch had been dug by the 
beavers and through this the water was pouring 
rapidly into the now overflowing canal. 
Early one evening, two days later, I peeped 
through the willows near the south end of the 
canal and saw an aspen pole with two or three 
twigs and several leaves fluttering from it. It 
was moving down the canal toward the house. 
The old beaver was propelling this. Both 
forepaws were against the end of the pole and 
he pushed it speeding toward the house at the 
lower end of the canal. He left this pole in 
the water and returned for another, then 
another. 
When he arrived with the third there were 
two beavers dragging the other poles over the 
short wet space between the end of the canal and 
the edge of the pond. 
These aspens were being canned in the water 
—stored in the pond—from which during the 
winter they would be dragged in short sections 
up into the house and their bark eaten. 
A green aspen commonly water-logs and sinks 
inside of thirty-six hours. The beavers were 
simply piling one pole on another, evidently 
realizing that the sinking would follow. 
The following afternoon I saw the old beaver 
