HOW THE BEAVER BUILDS.

If our little readers would learn something of the ways of this four-footed builder, let them in imagination accompany a beaver family, on some fine evening in May, when they start in search of a new home. The papa beaver, with his sons and sons-in-law, wife, daughters, and daughters-in-law, and, it may be, grandchildren, sallies forth "prospecting" the country for a good location; that is, a stream of easy navigation, and having an abundant supply of their favorite food, the silver-birch and poplar, growing as near the river as possible. Having selected these limits, the next step is to place their dwelling so as to command the greatest amount of food. For this purpose they go as far below the supplies as the character of the stream will permit. A pond of deep, still water being an indispensable adjunct to their dwelling, this is obtained by the construction of a dam, and few engineers could select a site to produce the required result so efficiently and economically. The dam and dwelling are forthwith commenced, the materials employed in both being roots, mud, and stones, the former two being dragged by the teeth, the latter carried between the fore-paws and the chin. If the dam is extensive, whole trees are gnawed down, the largest of which are of the diameter of an ordinary stove-pipe, the stump being cut standing about eighteen inches above the ground, and pointed like a crayon. Those trees which stand upon the bank of the stream they contrive to drop into the water as cleverly as the most experienced woodman; those which are more distant are cut up by their teeth into pieces which can be dragged to the water. These trees and branches are floated down to the site of the dam, where they are dragged ashore, and placed so that the tops shall be borne down by the current, and thus arrest the descending drift, and form a strong and tight dam. Critical parts are built "by hand," the sticks and mud when placed receiving a smart blow from the beaver's tail, just as a bricklayer settles his work with the handle of his trowel. The habitation or hut of the beaver is almost bomb-proof, rising like a dome from the ground on the margin of the pond, and sometimes six or eight feet in thickness in the crown. The only entrance is from a level of three or four feet under the water of the pond. These precautions are necessary, because, like all enterprising animals, the beaver is not without enemies. The wolverine, which is as fond of beaver tail as an old Nor'wester, would walk into his hut if he could only get there; but having the same distaste for water as the cat, he must forego the luxury.

It is not, however, for safety that the beaver adopts the submarine communication with his dwelling, though it is for this that he restricts himself to it. The same necessity which compels him to build a dam, and thus create a pond of water, obliges him to obtain communication with that pond when the ice is three feet thick upon its surface. Living upon the bark of trees, he is obliged to provide a comparatively great bulk for his winter's consumption; and he must secure it at the season when the bark is formed, and before it commences to dry; he must also store it up where it will not become frozen or dried up. He could not reasonably be expected to build a frost-proof house large enough to contain his family supply; but if he did, it would wither, and lose its nutriment: therefore he preserves it in water. But the most remarkable evidence of his instinct, sagacity, or reason is one which is not commonly mentioned by naturalists. His pond, we have seen, must be deep, so that it will not freeze to the bottom, and so that he can communicate with his food and his dam, in case of any accident to the latter requiring repairs; but how does he keep his food—which has been floated down to his pond—from floating, and thus becoming frozen in with the ice?

Now in gnawing down a tree, the top of the stump was left pointed like a crayon; the fallen tree has the same form, for the beaver cuts like a woodman—wide at the surface, and meeting in an angle in the centre—with this distinction: the four-legged animal does his work more uniformly, cutting equally all around the log, while the two-legged one cuts only from two opposite sides. Thus every stick of provender cut by the animal is pointed at both ends; and when brought opposite his dwelling, he thrusts the pointed ends into the mud bottom of his pond sufficiently firm to prevent their being floated out, at the same time placing them in a position in which the water has the least lift upon them; while he carefully apportions his different lengths of timber to the different depths of water in his pond, so that the upper point of none of them shall approach near enough to the surface to be caught by the winter ice.

From what has been said, it will be readily seen that the maintenance of the dam is a matter of vital importance to the beaver. Some say that the pilot beaver sleeps with his tail in the water, in order to be warned of the first mishap to the dam; but as there is no foundation for such an assertion, it may be set down as a very improbable tale. The Indians avail themselves of this well-known solicitude to catch them; having broken the dam, the risk is immediately perceived by the lowering of the water in the hut, and the beaver, sallying forth to repair the break, is slaughtered in the breaches.

As the supply of food in the vicinity of the dam becomes diminished, the beaver is obliged to go higher up the stream and more distant from its banks to procure his winter stores, and this necessity gives rise to fresh displays of his lumbering and engineering resources. In consequence of the distance and the limited duration of the high-water period favorable to transport, the wood is collected into a sort of raft, which, as lumber-men assert, is manned by the beaver, and steered by its tail, in the same manner as Norway rats are known to cross streams of water. When the raft grounds, a temporary dam is immediately thrown across the stream below the jam, by which the waters are raised and the raft floated off and brought down to the dam, which is then suddenly torn away, and on the crest of the accumulated body of water the raft is carried safely down to where it is to be used.

SO NEAR, AND YET SO FAR.