372 
ANIMAL INTELLIGENCE. 
for food ; but the smaller limbs, the bark of which is 
tender and nutritions, afford the aliment which they pre- 
fer.’ To obtain this food, the animals, as is well known, 
fell the trees by gnawing a ring round their base. Two 
or three nights’ successive work by a pair of beavers is 
enough to bring down a half-grown tree, 6 each family 
being left to the undisturbed enjoyment of the fruits of 
their own toil and industry.’ 4 When the tree begins to 
crackle they desist from cutting, wdiich they afterwards 
continue with caution until it begins to fall, when they 
plunge into the pond usually, and wait concealed for a 
time, as if fearful that the cracking noise of the tree-fall 
might attract some enemy to the place*’ It is of much 
interest that the beavers when thus felling trees know how 
to regulate the direction of the fall ; by gnawing chiefly 
on the side of the trunk remote from the water, they make 
the tree fall towards the water, with the obvious purpose 
of saving as much as possible the labour of subsequent 
transport. For as soon as a tree is down, the next work 
is to cut off the branches, or such as are from two to six 
inches in diameter ; and then, when they have been cleared 
of their twigs, to divide them into lengths sufficient to ad- 
mit- of the beavers transporting them to their lodges. The 
cutting into lengths is effected by making a number of 
semi-sections through the branch at more or less equal 
distances as it lies upon the ground, and then turning the 
branch half round and continuing the sections from the 
opposite side. 6 To cut it (the branch) entirely through 
from the upper side would require an incision of such 
width as to involve a loss of labour.’ The thicker the 
branch, the closer together are the sections made, and con- 
sequently the shorter are the resulting portions — the 
reason, of course, being that the strength of the animal 
would not be sufficient to transport a thick piece of timber 
of the same length as a thin piece which it is only just 
able to manage. 
In moving cuttings of this description they are quite in- 
genious. They shove and roll them with their hips, using also 
their legs and tails as levers, moving sideways in the act. In 
this way they move the larger pieces from the more or less 
