Juliana Horatia Ewing, Benjy in Beastland, Boston, Little Brown & Company, 1870.

So the wise-eyed beavers, whose black faces were as glossy as that of Nox, took him to their lodges, and showed him how they fell or collect wood « up stream » with their sharp teeth, and so float it down to the spot where they have decided to build, as the « logs » from American forests floats down the rivers in spring. And as they displayes the wonderous forethought and ingenuity of their common dwellings, a little caddis worm, in the water hard by, legged Benjy to observe that, on a smaller scale, hos own house bore witness to similar patience ans skill, with its rubble walls of mothey variety.

In another streams a doughty little sticleback sailing round and round the barrel-shaped nest, over which he was keeping watch displayed its construction with pardonnable pride.

Voir commentaire de ce texte page 413 in Ventures into childland : Victorians, fairy tales and feminity U.C. Knoepflmacher. University of Chicago Press. 2000