XVI1ll INTRODUCTION 
The present book is in no sense a scientific monograph 
of the beaver. My desire has been to produce something 
for the lay reader, for the one who cares nothing about 
subspecies and such matters, but who wants to learn some- 
thing about the most interesting wild animal on the North 
American continent, for such the beaver seems to me to be, 
and judging from my experience with the tourists in the 
Yellowstone, I am not alone in that opinion. At Camp 
Roosevelt the visitors were more interested in the beavers 
than they were in the bears, and that is saying much. 
In writing this book I have drawn freely from all the 
sources of information at my command, books, various 
scientific papers, my own personal notes, and from cor- 
respondence. I have tried to tell the truth about my sub- 
ject, without humanizing it, but not without acknowledging 
the wonderful intelligence or specialized instinct, which- 
ever it may be, often displayed in the things it does. If I 
have been at least partly successful I shall be pleased, es- 
pecially if I have avoided any serious errors. It would 
be presumptuous to think there are no errors whatever. 
