OUR FOUR-FOOTED NEIGHBORS. 321 



instinct of beavers. First, the way they act together in 

 so large a family. Most quadrupeds act singly or in pairs. 

 Then the way they use their judgment in their own affairs. 

 This is what makes it so hard to tell the difference be- 

 tween what we call instinct and what we call reason. Ani- 

 mals, like beavers, seem really to think and decide, for 

 instance, whether they need a dam, instead of going on 

 blindly and building one whether they need it or not. If 

 the water is already wide and deep enough, they save them- 

 selves the trouble, and live comfortably in their houses, 

 like musquashes. 



12. Then, again, when they are placed in wholly new 

 positions they are said to change their habits altogether. 

 When very hard pressed, they not only do without a dam, 

 but they do without a house, and they live almost alone. 

 On the river Elbe, in Europe, they have ceased to build 

 houses within the last fifty years, and live in holes in the 

 cliffs along the banks of the stream, On the banks of the 

 Rhone, where they are still found, they make holes in the 

 dikes which keep the river from overflowing. So they can 

 not be hunted without destroying the dikes. 



T. W. Higgimon. 



ELEPHANTS, AND HOW THEY ARE CAUGHT. 



1. Elephants, like dogs, show the most intelligence 

 when tamed. Indeed, it is said that out of all the animal 

 world these are the only two creatures that will work in the 

 absence of a master. You know how a dog will carry home 

 a basket or a bundle, and go trotting along without any- 

 body to watch him. It is just so with the elephant. 

 When he has been trained to do a certain work, he will 

 keep at it by himself, and will seem to take as much in- 

 terest in it, and do it as intelligently, as any man would 



