But it is not alone for the amount of work he does that I admire Mr. Beaver so much; it is for his intelligent, not to say brilliant, way of doing it. Suppose, for instance, you had to build a house out in the water, the way our great, great-grandparents, the lake-dwellers, did, to protect yourself from enemies and for other reasons. And then suppose you didn't have any tools; nothing but a pair of paws and a set of teeth. Could you do it?
Another thing: The lake-dwellers had plenty of water to build in; plenty, but not too much. The beavers don't have this advantage. They usually build in the water of flowing streams, and they have to make their own lakes. How would you do it; even if you had tools? But remember, being a beaver, you've got nothing to use but two honest paws and a set of teeth. It was with these Mr. Beaver did it all—with his teeth, his paws, and his head; the inside of his head, I mean—his brain. Take the matter of water arrangements. He gets the water to lie quietly and at just the right depth by building his dam across the stream. This dam not only provides him with water of just the right depth to protect his front door from enemies and to keep rushing torrents from carrying his house away, but the spreading out of the original stream bed into a pond helps in gathering the Fall harvest of trees, since it brings the trees nearer to the water's edge, and water transportation among beavers, as among men, is always cheapest.
Although dams are usually built of trees which the beavers cut down themselves, they also use cobblestones where trees are scarce; for Mr. Beaver is a very thrifty soul; he doesn't waste material nor time nor effort. Many books about beavers say they cut the trees so they will fall across the stream, but Mills says, in his book on the beaver, written after many years of patient observation, that beavers don't seem to care how the tree falls, just so it doesn't fall on them! Not but what they could cut trees to fall in the water if they thought best; for just watch them build a dam and see how clever they are; cleverer, possibly, than some of us.
BEAVERS AT WORK ON A DAM
See how many of the features of the building of a beaver dam, as described in our story of these wise little people, you can make out in this picture.
Let's see. Say you've got your trees up to where the dam is to be; now how are you going to set them in building the dam?