306 NATURE-STUDY REVIEW [11:6— Sept., 1915 



harnessing the dog or calf, or training the colt, making a cart by 

 use of old wheels, etc., — are valuable farm projects when seen from 

 a truly educational point of view. 



The materials of the book are not new. They are merely 

 assembled in a new relation, so that the meaning of their use in 

 education is pointed out. The book will be highly suggestive 

 to more teachers of agriculture and to young teachers it will be 

 particularly valuable by applying much interesting information 

 to supplement the text, but more than all by holding constantly 

 before them "what it's all about." 



Otis W. Caldwell. 



The Romance of the Beaver, A. Radclyffe Dugmore. Pp. 



xiv + 225. J. B. Lippincott Co. 



This book is the result of miles of travel, toting a pack or pad- 

 dling a canoe just on purpose to study the beaver. It is an exceed- 

 ingly interesting account of the life and work of the animal, 

 illustrated by over a hundred cuts, mostly reproductions of photo- 

 graphs taken in the wilds. It will take its place beside Morgan's 

 "American Beaver and His Works" as a contribution to the natural 

 history of the beaver. 



Dugmore is a firm believer in the reasoning power and under- 

 standing of a beaver. To quote: "Their intelligence is shown 

 by the way in which they will add water to a brook whose supply 

 seems inadequate to their needs. They will turn other streams 

 into the one which is failing them, by digging ditches to carry 

 the water, by even diverting an entire stream towards their own, 

 and by tapping springs by means of small ditches. Numberless 

 incidents of a more or less similar nature could be told to prove 

 that by the means employed in doing the work the beaver reasons 

 with the utmost clearness, while the results of their work justify 

 us in believing that they thoroughly appreciate what are, or 

 should be, the ends." (p. 72). 



Describing the building of the house, he quotes from Enos 

 Mills' "In Beaver World," previously reviewed here (September, 

 1 9 13), who says of the ventilating flue, "But little earthy matter 

 is used in the tip-top of the house where the minute disjointed 

 air-holes between the interlaced poles give the room scanty ventila- 

 tion." Then Dugmore goes on to say, "We are of course faced 

 with the question, Does the beaver do this intentionally with the 



