webbed feet the beaver accomplishes much. The 

 tail of a beaver is a useful and much-used ap- 

 pendage; it serves as a rudder, a stool, and a 

 ramming or signal club. The beaver may use his 

 tail for a trowel, but I have never seen him so 

 use it. His four front teeth are excellent edge- 

 tools for his logging and woodwork ; his webbed 

 feet are most useful in his deep-waterway trans- 

 portation, and his hands in house-building and 

 especially in dam-building. It is in dam-building 

 that the beaver shows his greatest skill and his 

 best headwork ; for I confess to the belief that a 

 beaver reasons. I have so often seen him change 

 his plans so wisely and meet emergencies so 

 promptly and well that I can think of him only 

 as a reasoner. 



I have often wondered if beaver make a pre- 

 liminary survey of a place before beginning to 

 build a dam. I have seen them prowling sug- 

 gestively along brooks just prior to beaver-dam 

 building operations there, and circumstantial 

 evidence would credit them with making prelim- 

 inary surveys. But of this there is no proof. I 

 have noticed a few things that seem to have been 



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