But he has two other important uses for this big tail, as we shall now see; for the beavers of this colony we are watching, having put up their dam and built their big house, are now ready for the Fall harvest that is to provide for the long Winter. The beavers are strict vegetarians. Their diet consists of the tender bark of young trees and roots dug from the bottom and along the banks of the ponds in which they live.
"But, for mercy's sake, where are they going to get the tender bark of trees in the dead of Winter, when all the trees are frozen solid and the beavers can't get from under the ice anyhow?"
Well, Mr. Beaver has thought out just how to do it and we didn't. That's the beauty of being a beaver. What he does is to cut down small trees, trim them, divide them into lengths, and then heap them up in a great pile at his door, under the water.
By the time they are three years old beavers feel grown-up; as, indeed, they are in size, although, like certain other young people I could name, they have a great deal yet to learn. At this age they choose their mates and either settle down in the home colony or go away somewhere else.
School takes up with the beavers in September. All through September and October the harvest is gathered and preparations made for the long Winter. The baby beavers of the Spring, who by this time are four or five months old, take part in the harvesting; at least they play at it. They don't do much, but they learn a great deal. Now let's all be little beavers for a few minutes and see what we can learn. We are out in the harvest-field—the woods—with father, and he's going to cut down a tree for the Winter food-pile. Watch him.
He picks out a young tree something less than six inches thick. Then he looks up as if he wanted to see what kind of a day it was going to be; although the fact is he never bothers his head about the weather. What he is really looking up for is to see if the top of the tree he is going to chop down is likely to get tangled in the tops of other trees when it falls. (All beavers, I should add, don't take this precaution; only the older and wiser ones.) After this inspection he either cuts the tree in two with his long sharp chisel teeth so that it will fall clear of the tangling branches of other trees, or, if he sees he can't prevent this, he moves away to another tree.
Just before the tree is ready to fall he thumps the ground several times with his tail to warn other beavers working near by. They all scamper as fast as their fat bodies and short legs will let them. If they are near water, as they usually are—they "plunk" into it. After the tree falls the limbs are cut off, the trunk gnawed into sections four to six feet long, depending on the size of the trunk, the distance from the water, and the number of beavers that are going to help move it. Although, as a rule, only one beaver works on a tree in cutting it down, they all pitch in and help in getting the sections home; dragging them across the ground and into the pond or into one of their wonderful canals.
THE BEAVERS AND THEIR PANAMA CANALS
The beavers knew all about digging canals long before the days of Colonel Goethals. They dug them for much the same reason we dug the great Panama Canal, to save time and expense in moving freight and for protection from possible enemies. On land the beaver is easy prey for wolves and such, but once in the water he can laugh at them. These canals not only enable him to haul his wood easily and safely, but are just the things to dive into when somebody is after you. Another purpose of the canals is to fill ponds where water is getting low; or to make a pond where there isn't any at all, as in a dry ravine.
Whether you look at them from the standpoint of their intelligence and good habits, or their usefulness, beavers are the most interesting of all our little four-legged brothers of field or wood, and it is pleasing to know that many States have passed laws to protect them.