106 THE BEAVER 
One or two bites are sufficient to cut a bush a half-inch or 
so through. In cutting trees of any size chips are taken out 
by first cutting at either end and then prying out sideways 
with the teeth. In trees of such a size that a wide scarf has 
to be cut good-sized chips are often removed, especially from 
soft woods, such as aspen. I have seen chips of the latter 
wood seven inches or more long. On an aspen seventeen 
inches in diameter, which was cut evenly all around, the 
width of the notch in the wood was 93 inches. In a lodge- 
pole pine twenty-one inches in diameter, on which all the 
cutting was done from one side, the notch had been made 
seventeen inches high. Pine wood being harder than aspen 
the chips are smaller, four inches being the longest I have 
found, and this pine must represent relatively much more 
work than the aspen mentioned (Figs. 54 and 55). 
Judging from my own observations and from what others 
have written, the great majority of trees are cut through 
from one side, especially in the case of the smaller ones, and 
the side from which the cutting is done is selected more 
for its convenience than for any other reason. On a hill- 
side nearly all the trees will be cut either from the up-hill 
side, or from one side or the other, and only a few from the 
lower side. Now aman in cutting a tree makes his deepest 
cut on the side toward which he wishes the tree to fall, but 
the trees which a beaver cuts on a hillside will nearly all 
fall down hill, no matter from what side the cutting is done. 
This is because most of the trees naturally lean down-hill, 
and therefore fall that way. Similarly trees growing along 
a stream tend to lean toward the water, and when cut, fall 
in that direction. It should perhaps be mentioned that 
Dugmore says that most trees are cut all around the trunk, 
and that may have been the case where he made his studies, 
in Canada and Newfoundland. Itis the larger trees stand- 
ing on level ground which are most likely to be cut evenly 
