124 STORIES OF BIRDS AND BEASTS 



we can eat walnut, ash, and the harder maples ; but we 

 do not relish them, and we sometimes use lily roots and 

 grass for salad. It would be wasteful merely to gnaw 

 the bark around the trunks of trees, besides this is not 

 as tender as the bark covering the branches ; so, as we 

 may not climb, nothing is left us but to fell the trees. 

 Then we select a tree a foot or more in thickness, and 

 begin our cutting from each side, upward and down- 

 ward, our teeth making short, chisel-like grooves, hew- 

 ing out wide chips. When the tree falls we run, arid, 

 diving, swim to our burrows lest some enemy should 

 hear the noise and catch us at our work. 



" 4 When all is quiet, we come out again, and like 

 good craftsmen begin to chop our wood in lengths to 

 carry home. We cut our fagots, measuring by their 

 weight instead of length, so that a thick limb will be 

 chopped in strips a foot in length, a thinner one two 

 feet long, and so on, for we know how much a Beaver 

 may carry easily. The wood is then taken to the store- 

 house of the burrow. The thick pieces we roll along 

 down the bank perhaps, holding them between paws 

 and chin in swimming, which we do easily, using our 

 tails as rudders to guide us with our load. The smaller 

 twigs we hold in our mouths, the ends trailing over our 

 shoulders to the ground. If any logs are hard to move, 

 we often use our tails as levers to pry them along, and 

 our tails also help us to lift up in our arms the great 

 stones, which we often have to move in building. 



" 4 When the right trees are near our water homes, 

 all goes well, but sometimes the near woods are all 

 eaten or otherwise destroyed. The water from the 

 ponds often runs back and floods the lowlands where 



