Part 16 (1/2)

[Illustration: COUSIN ECHIDNA

The echidna--you can see one in the New York Zoo--is closely related to our duck-billed friend and is also a native of Australia It uses that long, tapering nose and those claws to burrow for the ants on which it lives]

Still the scientists didn't knohat to call this paradox of the anidom; so they named him just that--paradoxicus, _Ornythoryncus paradoxicus_ A little Greek boy, without having to look it up in a dictionary, would have told us that ”ornythoryncus” means ”bird-billed”; for it's like those Greek picture words that always told their own story to the little Greeks As for ”paradox” if you don't knohat that means, look it up in the dictionary and then look at the _Ornythoryncus paradoxicus_, and you'll understand

IV THE BEAVERS

Of course you wouldn't like to be a duck-billed ht it would be rather nice to be a beaver The beaver is, in many ways, the most remarkable of all the water people that help ive us bread

[Illustration: BEAVERS AT WORK AND AT PLAY

Whether he's working because he is more industrious than those beavers in the water or because it's recess ti the tree see his profession as the others do in playing about]

But it is not alone for the amount of work he does that I adent, 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 e They usually build in the water of flowing streams, and they have to make their _own_ lakes Hoould you do it; even if you had tools? But re to use but two honest paws and a set of teeth It ith these Mr Beaver did it all--with his teeth, his paws, and his head; the inside of his head, I ets the water to lie quietly and at just the right depth by building his dam across the streaht depth to protect his front door fro his house away, but the spreading out of the original strea the Fall harvest of trees, since it brings the trees nearer to the water's edge, and water transportation ah 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

[Illustration: BEAVERS AT WORK ON A DAM

See howof a beaver dam, as described in our story of these wise little people, you can ot your trees up to where the da the daht across the dam,” you would say, wouldn't you? That is what most people have said when I have asked them that question; for that is the way men do it But remember, if you built the dam asto keep the logs froo, riters used to theorize a great deal on how things were done, instead of getting outdoors and watching patiently to see how they actually _were_ done, it was said that Mr Beaver in building his da tail of his But what Mr Mills found was that the beaver lays his trees lengthwise of the stream You see why that is, don't you? When the trees are laid lengthwise, the water, instead of striking them broadside, strikes only the end and so there is less likelihood of their being carried away

Another thing, two things, about the trees in the dam--in fact four:

1 It wouldn't do, you see, to lay the trees broadside to the streaive the the water fro them away?

2 Shall we use trees with the branches still on them or trees trimmed down like sticks of cord-wood? (What kind do you see in the picture of the beaver dam?)

3 Or shall we use both trimmed and untrimmed trees? If so, why? And how?

4 If we use untrimmed trees, which end shall we put up-stream? The butt or the tip?

[Illustration: SECTION OF A BEAVER DAM

You can see that there was a sufficient floater in the stream from which this sketch of a section of a beaver dam was taken; otherwise the dam would have been plastered with est slope, of course, was up-strea]

In building his dareen poles triths; but mixed with these are small untrimmed trees which he places with the butt end up-stream, and propped with her than the down end In this way, you see, the branches are ainst the butt end; while, if they were placed the other way, the current would have a pulling purchase on the butt end

The raising of the ends also lessens the pushi+ng force of the water as it doesn't strike the butt of the tree ”full on,” as it would otherwise do And the branches not only help to hold the trees in place, but, together, form a kind of foundation on which to pile and interreen, become water-soaked This makes them heavier and so causes them to sink and helps to hold thes of the untrimmed trees form a kind of basketwork that catches the sediment and drift of the streah The upside stream is plastered by the beavers with re Otherwise it is left unplastered You see Mr Beaver's idea is not to ht, for then it would be running over all the time and so be worn away What he wants is a dah slowly and at the same time keep a proper level