build here; but the site was a poor one, the land being uniformly low
on all sides, and no sooner did they finish their dam than the rising
water flowed around both ends of it. To remedy this they pushed out a
curving wing from either end of their first arch, so that the line of
their dam was now a pretty triple-curve. Again and again the outgoing
water crept around the obstacle; each time the beavers added other
curving wings, now on this side, now on that, bending them steadily
forward till the top of their dam suggested the rim of an enormous
scallop-shell. Then, finding the water deep enough for their needs,
they thrust out a straight wing from either end of their dam, resting
their work on the slopes of two hillocks in the woods, some fifty yards
apart,—this in a straight line, or across the hinge of the
scallop-shell: if measured on the curves, their dam was three or four
times that length. Their next task was to build a lodge on the point
above; then they dug a canal through the bog to the nearest grove of
hardwood, and cut down a liberal part of the trees for their winter
supply of bark. The branches of these trees had been cut into
convenient lengths, floated through the canal, and stored in a great
food-pile in the deep water near the lodge.
When I found the dam, several deer (to judge from the tracks) were
already using the top of it as a runway in passing from the flooded
ground on one side of the pond to the other. From either end a
game-trail led upward along the shore, no longer following immemorial
paths over the bog, which was submerged with all its splendor of color,
but making a new and rougher way through the black growth. When I
followed one of these trails it led me completely around the pond,
going confidently till it neared the salt-lick, where it halted,
wavered and trickled out in aimless wanderings. There, where once the
ground was trodden smooth by many feet, was now no ground to be seen.
The precious spring, over which a thousand generations of deer had
lingered, had vanished in a dull waste of water. Twice I watched the
place from early morning till owls began to cry the twilight; in that
time only a few animals appeared, singly, at long intervals; and after
wandering about as if seeking something and finding it not, they
disappeared in the dusky woods.
And so I went away, looking for the last time sadly on the little pond,
as upon a place one has owned and loved, but which has passed into
other hands. Though the wild ducks still breed or gather there, it is
no longer the same. There is no restful spot from which to watch the
waters dance with the wind, or frown at the cloud, or smile at the
sunshine; the little larches are all dead beside their ancestors; the
carpet of colored moss is but a memory. When the beavers go to pioneer
a remoter spot, I shall break their dam and let the water return to its
ancient level. Then, if happily I live long enough for another fringe
of larches to grow, and another mossy rug to crimson under the waning
sun, perhaps it will be my pond once more.
THE END
NOTES
[1] For further example and analysis of the matter, see pp. 196–199.
[2] Crawford, Thinking Black (1904).
[3] I am speaking of starlings as they now appear in southern New
England. They were brought from Europe a few years ago, and are
multiplying at an alarming rate. They have formed some curious new
habits here; even their voices are very different from the voices of
starlings as I have heard them in Europe.
[4] In parts of the West, I am told, wolves often kill more than they
need. Formerly they fed on the abundant game and were wholly natural
animals; but their habits have changed with a changed environment. When
the game was destroyed by settlers or hunters the wolves began to feed
on domestic animals; and the descendants of these wolves, which killed
right and left in a crowding, excited herd of sheep or cattle, are now
said to kill deer wantonly when they have the chance. I cannot
personally verify the saying, and know not whether it rests on
exceptional or typical observation. In the North, where there are no
domestic animals, I have rarely known a timber-wolf to kill after his
hunger was satisfied.