3 have never been able to decide which I love 

 best, birds or trees, but as these are really 

 comrades it does not matter, for they can take 

 first place together. But when it comes to second 

 place in my affection for wild things, this, I am 

 sure, is filled by the beaver. The beaver has so 

 many interesting ways, and is altogether so use- 

 ful, so thrifty, so busy, so skillful, and so pictur- 

 esque, that I believe his life and his deeds deserve 

 a larger place in literature and a better place in 

 our hearts. His engineering works are of great 

 value to man. They not only help to distribute 

 the waters and beneficially control the flow of 

 the streams, but they also catch and save from 

 loss enormous quantities of the earth's best plant- 

 food. In helping to do these two things, — gov- 

 erning the rivers and fixing the soil, — he plays 

 an important part, and if he and the forest had 

 their way with the water-supply, floods would be 

 prevented, streams would never run dry, and a 



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