LEAF AND TENDRIL 



through a broken pane; or the case of the red 

 squirrel that carried nuts all one day and put them 

 into the end of a drain pipe that ran down an em- 

 bankment wall and opened on to a pavement below, 

 where the nuts behaved much as the water did that 

 the pipe was meant to cany — they dropped down 

 and rolled away across the street pavement. Or the 

 case of the beaver that cut down a tree four times 

 because the tree was held by the branches of other 

 trees at the top so that it could not fall, but only 

 dropped at each cutting the distance of the piece 

 cut oflE. What finally decided the beaver to desist, 

 it would be interesting to know. Or take the case of 

 Hamerton's cow that in affection for her calf licked 

 its stuffed skin till it ripped open and the hay with 

 which it was stuffed fell out, when the bereaved 

 mother proceeded to eat the hay with the utmost 

 matter-of-course air. 



During some long-gone time in the history of the 

 raccoon it seems to have been needful for it to wash 

 its food. Maybe the habit was acquired when it 

 lived more exclusively than it does now upon fresh- 

 water mussels, which it dug out of the mud along 

 inland streams and lakes. At any rate, the coon 

 now always washes its food, whether it needs wash- 

 ing or not, and in muddy water as promptly as in 

 clear, so that the Germans call the coon the Wasch- 

 bar. Ernest Harold Baynes tells me that he has 

 taken young coons before their eyes were open, and 

 180 



