They soon get
waterlogged and go to the bottom. It is almost impossible for
lumbermen to drive spool wood (birch) for this reason. If the nights
grow suddenly cold before the wood sinks, the beavers take it down to
the bottom and press it slightly into the mud; or else they push
sticks under those that float against the dam, and more under these;
and so on till the stream is full to the bottom, the weight of those
above keeping the others down. Much of the wood is lost in this way by
being frozen into the ice; but the beaver knows that, and cuts
plenty.
When a beaver is hungry in winter he comes down under the ice, selects
a stick, carries it up into his house, and eats the bark. Then he
carries the peeled stick back under the ice and puts it aside out of
the way.
Once, in winter, it occurred to me that soaking spoiled the flavor of
bark, and that the beavers might like a fresh bite. So I cut a hole in
the ice on the pool above their dam. Of course the chopping scared the
beavers; it was vain to experiment that day. I spread a blanket and
some thick boughs over the hole to keep it from freezing over too
thickly, and went away.
Next day I pushed the end of a freshly cut birch pole down among the
beavers' store, lay down with my face to the hole after carefully
cutting out the thin ice, drew a big blanket round my head and the
projecting end of the pole to shut out the light, and watched.
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