62 ROMANCE OF THE BEAVER 
lighter end is held in the teeth so that the remainder 
hangs over the animal’s shoulder. Sometimes the 
beaver proceeds in this way on his hind feet only, 
with his front feet or hands holding the branch- 
Heavier logs are pulled or pushed either-with the 
head, chest or even the hips. Whether more than 
one does this work I have never been able to assure 
myself, but I think it is usual for a single beaver to 
take complete charge of his own log, get it down 
to the water as best he can, and then swim with it 
to the wood pile, where he sinks it or places it on 
the top, according to his own ideas. How the 
sinking of the wood is done has given rise to many 
fanciful tales. Some trappers firmly believe that 
they suck the air out of the wood so that it will 
easily sink. Anything more absurd would be hard 
to imagine. As a matter of fact, all the hard. 
woods have a specific gravity nearly equal to that 
of water, so it requires very little effort to take 
them down. Many a time have I watched the 
beaver swimming across their pond with a branch, 
and on arriving at the food pile dive under water, 
taking their branch with them. How they manage 
to keep the wood from floating is somewhat difficult 
to understand, but they succeed in doing so most 
effectively. I have never seen the short, thick logs 
carried down. They appear to be forced under 
water by the weight of other material which is piled 
on top of them. The size of the wood piles varies 
according to the number of beaver who are expected. 
