The Human Side of Animals

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adaptation, excels the lower animals in providing for the comforts of life; but, on the other hand, in such practical arts as engineering and domestic architecture man frequently finds himself an amateur in comparison. With all man's inventions he has not been able to equal some of the remarkable results produce

o suitable length for use in damming up water places. These are skilfully placed, and with the aid of mud, control the level of the water in selected places as efficiently as man could do. As a social animal, the beaver should be ranked among the first; of course, the various marmots are ext

oological Gardens, a visitor was pointing out different animals to his little son, and when he came to the beaver pond, referred t

taken at an early age they make nice pets and are easily domesticated. In the early days of American history it was not uncommon to see one running around an Indian lodge, playing like a child with the little Indians, and frequently receiving with the papoose nourishment from the mother's breast. Strangely enough, the cr

he body; the hind feet are larger, webbed like a duck's feet, and are the principal motive power in swimming. The most unique feature of the animal's body is the famous mud-plastering tail, which

ed direction while swimming and diving, and, in time of danger, employs it as a sound board, or paddle. When alarmed at night, he dives into the water, and, by means of his tail, splashes so violently as to give warning to all beavers w

enty to thirty feet long; but they differ greatly in size. There is one on a branch of Arnold's River in Canada, where the stream is twenty-one feet wide and two feet deep, which is especially well built. The dam is seven feet high, and rises five to six feet a

n of such questions is almost impossible. It is generally believed, however, that beavers work in gangs under a common "boss" or "overseer," and it is a known fact that they work only at night. During a dark, rainy night they accomplish twice

nto existence, and their methods are fully as scientific as those of man. Mill-dams usually run straight across a stream, while beaver-dams are so curved that the water is gently turned to each side. In this way the beaver-dams are capable of resisting immense quantities of water which in its impetuous rush would carry away the ordinar

egulation beaver houses are rarely constructed. Instead, apartment houses are hollowed out from the banks. But in the ease of a town-site on shallow, narrow waters, dams are absolutely necessary to insure

neighbourhood meet and remain together through the following spring. In the latter part of August the busy season begins, and each and every beaver, old and you

r. If only two are engaged in felling a tree, they work by turns, and alternately keep guard; this is a well-known practice of many animals both in work and play. As soon as the tree begins to bend and crack, they cease cutting and make sur

o the dam. No professional lumberman better understands how to transport lumber to a desired place than beavers. They realise the value of water transportation and thoroughly appreciate that trees can only

-digging. From one small stream to another, or from one lake to another, they excavate canals from three to four feet in width, with a water depth of two feet, and occasionally one hundred and fifty to two hundred feet in length. The amount of labour they perform is almost un

these artificial canals, by means of which the beavers carry their wood to their lodges, the supreme act of intelligence on the part of these wise animals. Even the dam, remarkable as it is, does not show evidence of greater skill than that displayed in the making of the

L ANIMAL ARCHITECTS. HIS SKILL I

f poles, twigs, and small branches of trees, woven together and plastered with mud, in the same way that the dams are made. Inside the house are circular chambers formed of mud, which have been smoot

elpless against trappers. Summer and winter they are hunted, until now they are fast becoming extinct. How few people seem fully to realise and care what is being done to wild animals! They do not seem to kno

abilities. He is at home throughout the greater part of North America, and, like the beaver, frequents the regions of slowly flowing streams and large, reed-bordered

r chambers or galleries, and these are used to store food in the form of delicate roots and bits of bark. Some of the more ambitious muskrats build large houses on piles of mud which rise out of the water. These houses are usually mad

foot in length, not including the tail; has small eyes, and tiny ears, partly covered with fur. In the winter, as

g hair which forms itself into a crest near the tip. Their homes are found among small grassy hills, where there are a few trees and bushes. They scratch out a small hole in the ground, near a tuft of tall grass, and so bend the grass as to form a complete roof to the house, which is rath

derneath bushes, and near damp springs. He is very small, not over three inches in length, and is like a miniature kangaroo, except for

abitants of this barren and desolate land. From the Arabs we learn that these little animals have extensive and intricate burrows, consisting of innumerable passages tunnelled out in

nd in a large central chamber. From this chamber a long winding tunnel terminates very near the surface of the ground, and it is a long distance from the other burrows. No sign of its existence a

habits of walk, and never go on all-fours. They walk by placing one hind foot alternatel

Mrs. Hyla is really the gifted member of the tribe, and it is during the breeding season that she diligently dives underneath the water, digs up handfuls of mud, and builds on the bottom a small circular wall, which encloses a space about ten to fourteen inches in diameter. This wall is continued until it reaches abou

re in croaking for Mrs. Frog while she works. Perhaps this is to her heart genuine m

he duckbill or duckmole, and is scientifically known as the Ornithorhynchus paradoxus. The nativ

aused many strange stories to originate about its habits and methods of propagation. It has the beak of a duck and waddles not unlike this bird, but, like ot

of enemies. The main tunnel or road to the home is sometimes fifty feet in length, and no engineer could devise a more deceptive approach; it winds up and down like a huge

grass. Here the young reside on soft beds until they are large eno

propagating the most erroneous ideas about the nature and works of these sea-builders. Montgomery, in his Pelican Island, makes statements that are shocking to an intelligent thinker, and which no scientist can excuse on the ground of poetical license. "The poetry of this excellent author," says Dana, "is good, but the facts nearly all errors-if literature allows of such an incongruity." Think of coral-animals as being referred to as shapeless worms that "writhe and shrink their tortuous bodies to grotesque dimensions"! These deep-sea builders manufact

that the warmth of the sea determines the distribution of the corals; the geography of these animals is defined by degrees of temperature. Only in equatorial seas may reef-building corals be found; and if

er form is seen in circular rings of coral of various breadths which enclose a body of still water-the lagoon. There are many of these coral islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. Keeling or Cocos Atoll, of the Indian Ocean, is 9? miles in its greatest width; Bow Island is 30 miles in length, and 6 miles wide; while in the Maldive Archipelago one island measures 88 geographical miles in length, and in some places is 20 miles wide. When one beholds a large coral ring, covered with rich soil and tropical vegetation, and "protecting a quiet lake-haven from the restless ocean without, it is little to be wondered at that the earlier voyagers recorded their surpr

coral-polypes aggregate themselves in the forms of atolls and barrier-reefs by a mysterious "instinct," mediocrity's only term for screening its ignorance, and which is also given as the cause for their

a theory that leaves untouched the essential question of the causes for coral-reefs assuming their various shapes; and it is reasonable to believe that they work according to a divine wisdom and plan, and that mankind does not yet understand their strange ways, which give us a high