1 14 ANIMALS IN FAMINE 



vegetable substances in a concentrated form natural 

 food-lozenges, which are very easily stored away. 

 There is a great difference, for example, between the 

 bulk of nutriment eaten in the form of grass by a 

 rabbit, and the same amount of sustenance in the 

 ' special preparation ' in the kernel of a nut, or the 

 stone of a peach, or the bulb of a crocus, off which a 

 squirrel makes a meal. Nearly all the storing animals 

 eat ' concentrated food/ whether it be beans and grain, 

 hoarded by the hamster, or nuts and hard fruits, by the 

 squirrel, nuthatch, and possibly some of the jays. But 

 there is one vegetable-eating animal whose food is 

 neither concentrated nor easy to move. On the con- 

 trary, it is obtained with great labour in the first 

 instance, and stored with no less toil after it is pro- 

 cured. The beaver lives during the winter on the bark 

 of trees. As it is not safe, and often impossible, for 

 the animal to leave the water when the ice has formed, 

 it stores these branches under water, cutting them into 

 lengths, dragging them below the surface, and fixing 

 them down to the bottom with stones and mud. This 

 is more difficult work than gathering hay. 



Birds, in spite of their powers of locomotion, suffer 

 greatly from famine. Many species which could leave 

 the famine area seem either deficient in the instinct to 

 move, or unwilling to do so. Rooks, for instance, 

 which are now known to migrate across the Channel 



