Virginia Heyninck, age 12, of Oromooto, N.B., for her question:
Why i s there never a lazy beaver?
A beaver kitten learns to keep busy early in life; As soon as he can toddle, his devoted parents take him out into the world and teach him what must be done to make a beaver's life comfortable. The little pupil will learn this beavercraft along with one, two, three or four brothers and sisters. If he neglects his chores, chances are he will not live to grow up and have beaver babies of his own.
The beaver is built to live in the water. He is a born swimmer with webbed feet and the fat fellow is too slow to save himself from hungry meat eating weasels and foxes. He needs water between him and his enemies. He also needs a dependable pool of water to store his winter food supply. And all these beaver necessities require a lot of busy beaver work.
A grown beaver weighs 30 to 50 pounds and beavers of 100 pounds have been found. He is three or four feet long, plus a foot of flat, scaly tail. And no, he does not use this tail a s a spade. His ears and nose are fitted with valves which close when he goes under water. He can swim almost X4 fast as you can walk and can stay under water for 15 minutes or more.
The family home may be a burrow in a muddy stream bank, but it is more likely to be a fine house sitting right in the middle of the beaver pool. The base of the house is made of heavy sticks and logs, mortared together with mud and stones. Inside there is a couch of chips and bark and in the pointed roof of sticks there is a hole for ventilation. It takes a lot of work and skill to build this house and it is work that must be done for the house i s the beaver's fortress against hi s enemies.
The front door to the house is under water and the surrounding pool is a moat. The water level must be kept high, or the beaver would be left high and dry. So, with the help of his relatives, he builds a dam: From sunset to dawn, the busy beavers are out cutting down trees and gnawing them into logs, The logs are floated to the dam site and weighted in place with stones and mud. Sometimes the logs have to be toted from a distance. Then the beavers build long canals to float them to the dam site. Between chores, the busy fellows stop for a meal of poplar bark. Come fall, twigs and bark covered sticks are weighted down in the pool below the frost level,
All these chores and many more are learned by the young beaver. His education takes about two years, by which time the mother beaver is ready to have another litter of kittens. The grown children are then sent away to make a life for themselves. Now we find out which of them learned their lessons well and which of them are lazy fellows, unable to make a safe and comfortable home.
Almost every beaver learns his lessons well and his chores do not seem to bother himl Perhaps that is an expression of contentment on his furry face. Who knows, he may know better than some of us that the best way to stay happy is to keep busy.