468 



Life-histories of Northern Animals 



IN 



WORK- 

 ING 



While at work the fore-paws are used to hold sticks that 

 are being cut up by the teeth, also to carry mud and stones. 

 They push, pull, dig, and grapple with them — they use them, 

 indeed, as hands. 



Long sticks are carried in the teeth, with the end over the 

 Beaver's back if on land. Small logs are rolled by one or more 

 Beavers pushing with their hands, their shoulders, their hips 

 or their whole broadside. 



INTER- 

 COMMU- 

 NICA- 

 TION 



Being essentially sociable, the Beaver has many methods 

 of communicating ideas. The first of these is the vocal. 

 Young Beavers wail like a crying child. Older ones hiss in 

 menace or utter a querulous "churr.'* When two meet in 



the pond I have several times seen 

 them nibble each other's cheeks, at 

 the same time uttering a chattering 

 noise; I suppose it is a friendly salu- 

 tation. 



Another important means is the 

 ** splash " signal. While watching the 

 Beavers at Yancey's I learned that 

 at once, on discovering danger, each 

 Beaver gives a great slap with its 

 tail and dives; this is understood by 

 all and repeated ^^' all as they dive. 

 Among the hunters on the Nyar- 

 ling River I found that it is considered the sign of a mortal 

 wound if the Beaver dives without slapping. The sound of 

 it on a quiet evening is very far-reaching; it is in fact two 

 sounds, one a loud "slap" as of a paddle, followed at once by 

 a deep hollow plunge, as though a ten-ton boulder had been 

 dropped in the water. 



2><WTV 

 Fig. 137 — Succession of altitudes in diving, 



MUD- 

 PIES 



But there is another way which may be called the mud- 

 pie telephone. The Beaver has, like birds, a cloaca or one 

 orifice, urinal, genital, and anal combined; each (male or 

 female) has close to this two pairs of glands. The large ones 



