reaching adaptation to certain constant conditions 

 of environment, or where faculties, undoubtedly 

 instinctive, are more puzzlingly wrought up with 

 faculties no less undoubtedly intelligent. ... It 

 is truly an astonishing fact that animals should 

 engage in such vast architectural labors with 

 what appears to be the deliberate purpose of se- 

 curing, by such artificial means, the special bene- 

 fits that arise from their high engineering skill. 

 So astonishing, indeed, does this fact appear, 

 that as sober minded interpreters of fact we 

 would fain look for some explanation which would 

 not necessitate the inference that these actions 

 are due to any intelligent appreciation, either of 

 the benefits that arise from labor, or of the hydro- 

 static principles to which this labor so clearly 

 refers." 



Mr. Alexander Majors, originator of the Pony 

 Express, who lived a long, alert life in the wilds, 

 pays the beaver the following peculiar tribute 

 in his "Seventy Years on the Frontier": "The 

 beaver, considered as an engineer, is a remark- 

 able animal. He can run a tunnel as direct as the 

 best engineer could do with his instruments to 

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