American Toby Jug Museum 

Beaver toby jug produced in Taiwan for The Franklin Mint of Exton, Pennsylvania, in a 1987 limited edition. Beavers are large, semiaquatic rodents of the Northern Hemisphere. Beavers are the second-largest living rodents, after capybaras, weighing up to 110 pounds. They have stout bodies with large heads, long chisel-like incisors, brown or gray fur, hand-like front feet, webbed back feet, and tails that are flat and scaly. Beavers can be found in a number of freshwater habitats, such as rivers, streams, lakes and ponds. They are herbivorous, consuming tree bark, aquatic plants, grasses and sedges. Beavers build dams and lodges using tree branches, vegetation, rocks and mud; they chew down trees for building material. Dams restrict water flow, and lodges serve as shelters. Their infrastructure creates wetlands used by many other species, and because of their effect on other organisms in the ecosystem, beavers are considered a keystone species. A tree branch forms the handle of the jug.