- 5 - 



use in plastering?: up the darn and house. Then they also make big burrows. 

 They begin these at the bottom of the TDOnd or stream, dig tip into the baailc, 

 and end by ^idenin^i; out a sort of cave-like nest above the water level. Tlaose 

 bank burrows are sometimes 40 to 50 feet long and big enof^-^h for a man to 

 crawl into. Then, of course, you knorr they dig those canals or r^atenyays they 

 use in floating timber and for ST/imming through lovrlands for food. But beavers 

 rarely dig on the surface of the ground and never make a burrov' '.vith an ex- 

 posed entrance. 



I might go on indefinitely tellirii^ you some of the interesting things 

 about beavers '-'hicli i'r. Vernon Bailey told me.' Of course, you have seen their 

 dams and houses and knov/ hov they are built, and have noticed hor/ the trees 

 a.re cut arid stripoed of their bark for food. 



But I don't laio;7 any better T7ay to end this talk than to sao' a "'ord 

 about the beaver's tail. There has boon a lot of specualtion about T7hy a 

 beaver's tail is V7ide and flat. ilr. Bailey says one of the uses for that 

 tail is to slap the vratcr loudly as a sort of -.Yaxning signal to friends aiid 

 foes, but chiefly it is used in the rrater as a ruddor and propeller. Its 

 full uidth and stocring pov/er is tajccd to the limit as the beaver swims, tug- 

 likc by the side of a pole or log it is toiring to the house or dam. 



ANII0UIICSivI3I\'T ; You have just listened to c. program presented by the United 



Sta.tes Department of Agriculture and Station • This time tT70 rreeks 



from today ve -Till have another of these visits vrith Uncle Sam's Naturalists. 



#7^ 



