366 FOUR-FOOTED AMERICANS 



of it is true. If you doubt it, you may ask the very 

 first Wise Man you meet. 



(A Beaver leaves his Work to chat a Few Moments in 

 THE Moonlight) 



'"I am a fourfoot of a very ancient family and one 

 of the oldest of Mammals. Land and water both 

 desired to own me, so Nature j)lanned me to be shared 

 by both, giving me the fore paws of a land animal and 

 the strong webbed hind feet of a swimmer. 



" ' As I sit on this low bank and look at my reflection 

 in the pond, it seems to me that, though I am a decidedly 

 remarkable and intelligent beast, I am very plain, or, 

 an ill-natured person might say, ugly in appearance. 

 My body is about three feet long from my nose to the 

 beginning of my tail. I slope fore and aft, humping 

 up in the middle like a haystack. My long claws are 

 of the pattern given to burrowers, from the Badger to 

 the Gopher, and ni}^ four gnawing teeth, of a strange 

 design, are curved and powerful, the lower two being 

 five and the upper pair four inches long. Yet they are 

 set so deeply in the jaw that little more than an inch 

 of them is seen, like tools that are braced deeply in 

 their handles to give extra strength. The outside of 

 these teeth is of a stronger texture than the inside, 

 which causes them to wear down toward the back, 

 giving them the cutting edge of a keen chisel. 



" ' Look at my tail I It is nine inches long, and in 

 the middle half as wide as its length ; it is a flat, scaly 

 paddle, in fact. You shall see how it serves me as a 

 rudder, a danger signal, and a mason's trowel. 



" ' The color of my fur coat is usually reddish brown, 



