ow, cottonwood, or alder.
This is their granary, and during the winter they feed upon the green
bark, supplementing this with the roots of water-plants, which they
drag from the bottom of the pond.

Along in May five baby beaver appear, and a little later these explore
the pond and race, wrestle, and splash water in it as merrily as boys.
Occasionally they sun themselves on a fallen log, or play together
there, trying to push one another off into the water. Often they
play in the canals that lead between ponds or from them, or on the
"slides." Toward the close of summer, they have their lessons in
cutting and dam-building.

[Illustration: A BEAVER-HOUSE

Supply of winter food piled on the right]

A beaver appears awkward as he works on land. In use of arms and hands
he reminds one of a monkey, while his clumsy and usually slow-moving
body will often suggest the hippopotamus. By using head, hands, teeth,
tail, and webbed feet the beaver accomplishes much. The tail of a
beaver is a useful and much-used appendage; it serves as a rudder, a
stool, and a ramming or signal club. The beaver _may_ use his tail
for a trowel, but I have never seen him so use it. His four front teeth
are excellent edge-tools for his logging and woodwork; his webbed feet
are most useful in his deep-waterway transportation, and his hands in
house-building and especially in dam-building. It is in dam-building
that the beaver shows his greatest skill and his best headwork; for I
confess to the belief that a beaver reasons. I have so often seen him
change his plans so wisely and meet emergencies so promptly and well
that I can think of him only as a reasoner.

I have often wondered if beaver make a preliminary survey of a place
before beginning to build a dam. I have seen them prowling
suggestively along brooks just prior to beaver-dam building operations
there, and circumstantial evidence would credit them with making
preliminary surveys. But of this there is no proof. I have noticed a
few things that seem to have been considered by beaver before
beginning dam-building,--the supply of food and of dam-building
material, for instance, and the location of the dam so as to require
the minimum amount of material and insure the creation of the largest
reservoir. In making the dam, the beaver usually takes advantage of
boulders, willow-clumps, and surface irregularities. But he often
makes errors of judgment. I have seen him abandon dams both before and