* Qgfeawr 



for the long winter. He takes thought for the 

 morrow. These and other commendable charac- 

 teristics give him a place of honor among the 

 hordes of homeless, hand-to-mouth folk of the wild. 

 During the winter he has but little to do except 

 bathe and eat his two or three meals a day from the 

 food he has stored in the autumn. Towards spring. 

 when his wild neighbors are lean, hungry, and 

 cold, he is fat and comfortable. In the spring he 

 emerges from the house, but then his only work 

 is occasionally to cut a twig for food. In the 

 summer he plays tourist. He visits other colonies, 

 and wanders up and down streams, going miles 

 from home. In the late summer or early autumn 

 he returns, makes repairs, and harvests food for 

 winter. 



The beaver is a valuable conservationist, but 

 there are localities in which he cannot be toler- 

 ated. Although dead wood is rarely cut by the 

 beaver, many a homesteader has been disturbed 

 by his cutting off and carrying away green fence 

 posts. Recently beaver have returned to a few 

 localities and got themselves into bad repute by 

 felling fruit trees. Occasionally, too, in the West, 

 30 



