I have found these
pretty bells growing on the wild hills about Rice Lake, near the water, as
well as near the beaver meadows."
"Do the beavers sleep in the winter time, nurse?"
"They do not lie torpid, as racoons do, though they may sleep a good deal;
but as they lay up a great store of provisions for the winter, of course
they must awake sometimes to eat it."
Lady Mary thought so too.
"In the spring, when the long warm days return, they quit their winter
retreat, and separate in pairs, living in holes in the banks of lakes and
rivers, and do not unite again till the approach of the cold calls them
together to prepare for winter, as I told you."
"Who calls them all to build their winter houses?" asked the child.
"The providence of God, usually called instinct, that guides these
animals; doubtless it is the law of nature given to them by God.
"There is a great resemblance in the habits of the musk-rat and the
beaver. They all live in the water; all separate in the spring, and meet
again in the fall to build and work together; and, having helped each
other in these things, they retire to a private dwelling, each family to
its own. The otter does not make a dam, like the beaver, and I am not sure
that, like the beaver, it works in companies: it lives on fish and roots;
the musk-rat on shell-fish and roots; and the beaver on vegetable food
mostly.
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