42 THE WONDERS OF THE ANIMAL KINGDOM. 



the building is carrying on. These piles they sink in the ground, and interweave the branches with 

 the larger stakes. In order to dress these stakes and put thern in a situation nearly perpendicular, 

 some of the beavers raise the thick end against the margin of the river, or against the cross-tree, while 

 others plunge to the bottom, and'dig holes to receive the points that they stand on end. While some 

 are labouring in this manner, others bring earth, which they place with their feet and beat firm with 

 their tails. They cany the earth in their mouths and with their fore-feet, and transport it in such 

 quantities that they fill all the intervals between the piles with it. The stakes facing the under part of 

 the river are placed perpendicular]}', but the rest of the work slopes upward to sustain the pressure of 

 the fluid, so that the width of the bank is reduced to two or three feet at the top. When any breaches 

 are made in the bank by sudden inundations, they lose no time in repairing them as soon as the 

 water subsides. The dwelling-places of these curious animals are cabins built upon piles, near the 

 margin of the pond, and have two openings, one for going out on land, and the other for throwing 

 themselves into the water. The form is either oval or round, varying in size from four to eight or 

 ten feet in diameter. Some of them consist of three or four stories, and the walls are about two feet 

 thick, raised perpendicularly upon planks, which serve both for foundations and floors to their houses. 

 They are impenetrable to rain, aud resist the most impetuous winds. The partitions are covered with 

 a kind of stucco nicely plastered, and each cabin has its own magazine of winter food, proportioned to 

 the number of its inhabitants, who have all a common right to the store. Some villages are composed 

 of twenty or twenty-five cabins, but these large establishments are rare, and the common republics 

 seldom exceed ten or twelve families, of which each has her own quarter of the village, her own 

 magazine, and her separate habitation. They allow no strangers to locate in their neighbourhood. 

 The smallest cabins contain two or four, and the largest eighteen, twenty, and sometimes thirty 

 beavers. 



When any danger approaches, they advertise one another of it by striking their tails on the surface 

 of the water, the noise of which is heard at a great distance, and resounds through all their habita- 

 tions. Each then takes his post ; some plunge into the lake, others conceal themselves within their 

 walls, which no animal will attempt to open or overturn. During the greatest part of the day they sit 

 up with their heads and part of the body elevated, and their posterior parts sunk in the water. They 

 often swim a long way under the ice, and it is then that they are the most easily taken, by attacking 

 the cabin at one side, and at the same time watching at a hole made at some distance in the ice, 

 where they are obliged to repair for the purpose of respiration. The females bring forth in the end of 

 winter, and generally produce two or three young at a birth. About this time they are left by the 

 males, who retire to the country, in order to enjoy the pleasures and the beauties of the spring. They 

 return occasionally to their cabins, and are occupied in nursing, protecting, and rearing their young, 

 who at the expiration of a few weeks are in a condition to follow their dams. The females, in their 

 turn, make little excursions to recruit themselves in the air, by eating fresh bark and herbage; and in 

 this manner they pass the summer upon the waters and in the woods. They do not assemble again 

 till autumn, unless the bank or cabins are overturned by inundations. 



The animals in the Zoological Gardens appear perfectly reconciled to their state of comparative cap- 

 tivit} - , and are become so tame as to accept a biscuit, or any other article of food which is offered to 

 them, with the greatest docility. 



