140 WATCHED BY WILD ANIMALS 
completed, a deep water pond had stored in it 
the autumn harvest—food for months. This 
necessary work was completed a month before 
the pond froze solid and several weeks before 
the first snow. 
This main pond is off the stream, connecting 
with it by a ditch through the side of another 
pond, and will thus receive but little sediment. 
But each year a layer of fine material will sift 
in and settle on the bottom, making the pond 
shallower. Although this pond will live longer 
than most ponds it, too, will meet the common 
fate—be filled in with rich soil, be buried and 
forgotten beneath grass, wild flowers, willows, 
and groves of trees. 
Several times through the ice I saw the beav- 
ers in the pond. A number of times I watched 
them by the food pile cutting off sticks of ra- 
tions. Other times they were swimming about 
as though just having their daily cold bath. 
While the glassy ice covering of the pond was 
still clear I once saw them at play in the water 
beneath the ice; all nine. They wrestled in 
pairs, they mixed in masses, they raced two and 
three, they followed the leader circling and 
criss-crossing. Now and then one dropped out, 
rose against the under surface of the ice where 
there was an air pocket, and here I suppose had 
a few breaths and then resumed the play. 
