It can almost be said that there is no industry or profession of the human world that is not carried on with equal skill in the animal world. This is especially true of merchandising and store-keeping; animals, however, have different methods of merchandising than men, although these methods are none the less real. They give and take instead of buy and sell and have co-operative shops which they operate with great success. They unite for a desired end, and demonstrate their ability to work together in a common enterprise in a way that might teach man a good lesson.
Food and shelter are the first needs of animals. In order to obtain these, they group themselves into foraging parties in the most ingenious manner. Like mankind, they sometimes co-operate for dishonest ends; they form "trusts" and organise into gangs for purposes of mutual aid.
Deer, monkeys, rabbits, foxes, and numerous others conduct their dining-rooms on a co-operative principle. Some watch and wait while others dine. The same is true where they go to watering places to drink and bathe.
Perhaps the most unique and clever food conserver is the American polecat. He not only provides for himself, but prepares a larder for his young, so that they will have plenty of food. The nursery is usually comfortably embedded in a cave, and is lined with soft, dry grass. Adjoining this nursery is a larder, which often contains from ten to fifty large frogs and toads, all alive, but so dexterously bitten through the brain as to make them incapable of escaping. Mr. and Mrs. Pole-cat can then visit or hunt as they please, so long as their children have plenty of fresh meat at home!
Another interesting food conserver is the chipping squirrel, or chipmunk, so named because his cry sounds like the chirp of little chickens. His method of dress is most unusual; he is brownish grey in colour, with five stripes of black and two of pale yellow running along the back of his coat; the throat and lower part of his body is snowy white. These colours occasionally vary, when the grey and yellow are superseded by black.
His home is underground, usually under an old wall, near a rock fence, or under a tree; his burrow is so long and winding that he can easily escape almost any enemy, except the weasel, which is not easily outwitted. His nursery and living-room is quite pretentious, but his lateral storeroom is a marvel! He is a miser indeed, and stores up every acorn and nut he can find, even many times more than he can ever eat. His variety of food is almost unending—he loves buckwheat, beaked nuts, pecans, various kinds of grass seeds, and Indian corn. In carrying food to his home he first fills his pouches to overflowing and then takes another nut in his mouth; he thus reminds the classical reader of Alemæon in the treasury of Crœsus.
The hedgehog is a regular Solomon in her methods of collecting fruit. Plutarch had a very high opinion of her. He says that when grapes are ripe, the mother hedgehog goes under the vines and shakes them until some of the grapes fall; she then literally rolls over them until many are attached to her spines, and marches back to her babies in the cave. "One day," says Plutarch, "when we were all together, we had the chance of seeing this with our own eyes—it looked as if a bunch of grapes was shuffling along the ground, so thickly covered was the animal with its booty."
