FOOD AND TREE CUTTING tl7 
trees mentioned above are examples of this. Mills records 
a stump 3 feet 6 inches in diameter, on Jefferson River, 
Montana, near the mouth of Pipestone Creek. In the 
“Nature Room” at Longs Peak Inn is a cottonwood stump 
having diameters of 32 and 28 inches at right angles to one 
another. Vernon Bailey, in the Mammals of the Glacier 
National Park, figures a cottonwood stump 46 inches across. 
Judging from the picture this was quite irregular in shape. 
This is the largest of which I have any knowledge. 
Considering the tools with which it works a beaver can 
fell trees quite quickly. Mills states that a four-inch aspen 
can be cut in about an hour. Dugmore says that a single 
beaver will cut down a tree eight to ten inches through in one 
night. Morgan makes the statement that with three beavers 
working on a tree at once, two nights at most would be 
ample to bring down a tree afoot indiameter. Bailey says 
that an old beaver will fell a three or four inch aspen, cut it 
into sections four to eight feet long, and drag it to the water 
in one night. 
There is a difference of opinion among observers as to 
how many beavers work upon a tree at the same time. I 
think most doubt if more than two ever do, and that number 
infrequently. Another point on which opinions vary is as 
to whether, when a tree is about to fall, the beaver doing the 
cutting gives a signal by striking the ground with its tail 
as a warning to other beavers nearby. I suspect that the 
signal is sometimes given and sometimes not, just as a beaver 
often dives without slapping the water with its tail, even 
when alarmed. I have seen a beaver which I came upon 
unexpectedly as it was swimming in a pond, slip quietly 
below the surface without a sound. 
In cutting trees the beaver usually stands on its hind feet 
with the wide, heavy tail stretched out behind as a balance, 
but some trees are cut so close to the ground that the animal 
