IV. The Beavers

Of course you wouldn't like to be a duck-billed mole—nobody would, but I always thought it would be rather nice to be a beaver. The beaver is, in many ways, the most remarkable of all the water people that help make the lands that give us bread.

Although dams are usually built of trees which the beavers cut down themselves, they also use cobblestones where trees are scarce; for Mr. Beaver is a very thrifty soul; he doesn't waste material nor time nor effort. Many books about beavers say they cut the trees so they will fall across the stream, but Mills says, in his book on the beaver, written after many years of patient observation, that beavers don't seem to care how the tree falls, just so it doesn't fall on them! Not but what they could cut trees to fall in the water if they thought best; for just watch them build a dam and see how clever they are; cleverer, possibly, than some of us.

SEE IF YOU'RE AS CLEVER AS MR. BEAVER

"Right across the dam," you would say, wouldn't you? That is what most people have said when I have asked them that question; for that is the way men do it. But remember, if you built the dam as men build dams you would have to drive stakes or do something to keep the logs from washing away. Years ago, when writers used to theorize a great deal on how things were done, instead of getting outdoors and watching patiently to see how they actually were done, it was said that Mr. Beaver in building his dam did really drive stakes and that he did it with that big tail of his. But what Mr. Mills found was that the beaver lays his trees lengthwise of the stream. You see why that is, don't you? When the trees are laid lengthwise, the water, instead of striking them broadside, strikes only the end and so there is less likelihood of their being carried away.

Another thing, two things, about the trees in the dam—in fact four:

1. It wouldn't do, you see, to lay the trees broadside to the stream, but what position could we give them that would help still further in keeping the water from carrying them away?

2. Shall we use trees with the branches still on them or trees trimmed down like sticks of cord-wood? (What kind do you see in the picture of the beaver dam?)

3. Or shall we use both trimmed and untrimmed trees? If so, why? And how?

4. If we use untrimmed trees, which end shall we put up-stream? The butt or the tip?

The timbers, being cut green, become water-soaked. This makes them heavier and so causes them to sink and helps to hold them in place; while the branches and twigs of the untrimmed trees form a kind of basketwork that catches the sediment and drift of the stream, and so the dam lets less and less water through. The upside stream is plastered by the beavers with mud in cases where the flow of water in the stream is meagre. Otherwise it is left unplastered. You see Mr. Beaver's idea is not to make the dam absolutely water-tight, for then it would be running over all the time and so be worn away. What he wants is a dam that will let the water through slowly and at the same time keep a proper level.

Mr. Beaver's chief purpose in building these dams seems to be to keep his front-door yard full of water. This may look like a funny idea at first, but in this, as in other things, Mr. Beaver shows he has a very wise head on his shoulders; for one peculiarity of his life is that he is obliged to come and go through the cellar door. As he doesn't want any of his enemies—the wolf, the coyote, and all that class of people—to use this door, he keeps it under water. And in winter-time, when he goes out to the wood-pile to get something to eat, the water must be deep enough so that the pond doesn't freeze solid to the bottom.

THAT MYSTERY ABOUT THE BEAVER'S TAIL

Then what do they do with those tails? Well, for one thing, they sometimes use them to carry mud by curling them between their legs and holding the mud against their bodies. Perhaps they resort to this way of carrying mud where they have such a steep climb up the roof they need all four legs to climb with; or it may be just an individual fancy of some beavers. For, being really thinkers and not mere machines, acting entirely on what is called instinct, different beavers have different ways of doing things. The beaver's tail is also very useful in swimming, and Mr. Beaver is a great swimmer. You should see him. He swims mostly with his hind feet and tail, holding his fore paws against his breast as a squirrel does when he's sitting up looking at you. His tail he uses as one uses an oar in sculling, turning it slightly on edge as he works it back and forth.

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.

HIDE AND SEEK IN THE LIBRARY

The crayfish is a thing you've got to take seriously if you want to get the most out of it. Huxley says that a thorough study of a crayfish is almost a whole course in zoology. Think of going to school to a crayfish! But you'd enjoy it, I'm sure. For just look—and these are only a few of the interesting things you will find in Huxley's famous book on "The Crayfish":

How they swim backward (no doubt you know this already), and how they walk on the bottom of the water.

Why they seem to know the points of the compass—for they prefer rivers that run north and south.

Why they are most active toward evening.

Where they spend the winter.

Why they eat their old clothes.

How early in the spring you may expect to find them.

When they hatch their eggs and how the mother crayfish uses her tail for a nursery.

In what respect they resemble moths.

How they chew their meals with their feet and work their jaws like a camel from side to side—only more so!

How they grow by fits and starts, and what this has to do with the way they change their clothes.

How you can tell the age of a crayfish. (You don't do it by looking at its teeth. You couldn't see its teeth anyway, because they are in its stomach.)

And all this in less than the first fifty pages of a book, which has more than 350.

One of the most famous of the crab family, not only on account of his part in agriculture, but because of his funny ways, is the robber-crab. You should read about the wild life of adventure some of these crabs lead—regular Robinson Crusoes who get wrecked on islands far away from home and build houses there and shift for themselves in many ingenious ways, just as the human Robinson Crusoe did. Kingsley's "Madam How and Lady Why" has some interesting pages about them; and so has Darwin's "Voyage Around the World."

Of the many things that have been written about beavers the following are among the most interesting: The story of the beaver in "Stories of Adventure," edited by Edward Everett Hale; "The Forest Engineer," by T. W. Higginson, in Johonnott's "Glimpses of the Animal World"; "How the Beaver Builds His House," in "The Animal Story Book," edited by Lang; "The Builders," in Lang's "Ways of Wood Folks"; and "The House in the Water," by Roberts.

The most interesting book of all on beavers, however, is "The Beaver World," by Mills, referred to in this chapter. I have not told you one-half of the remarkable things you will find about them in this book.

One of the most curious is about how a beaver sometimes gets his breath in the winter time. He may have to travel quite a distance under the ice, and one good breath has to last him to the end of the journey.

"But does he hold his breath all this time? How can he?"

He can't. He just uses the same breath over again. See how he does it. The Mills book tells.

Look up the muskrat and compare his ways with those of the beaver.

In the "Country Life Reader" you will find a graphic description of one of the perils of life for the beavers and their cousins the muskrats; namely in attacks by the great horned owl.

CHAPTER IX

Sh! Go easy! Pretend you're a horse or a cow.[21] We've gone south with the swallows—it's September you see—and those queer birds over there are flamingoes. The flamingoes are a shy lot; I don't know why. I can't think it's on account of their looks; for there's the kiwi, the hornbill, and sakes alive—the puffins! They all have funny noses, too, but none of them are particularly shy, and you can walk right up to a Papa Puffin almost. Whatever the reason is, the flamingoes are very easily frightened and they're particularly suspicious of human beings. Yet we've simply got to meet them and have them in this chapter, for they are among the most interesting of the feathered workers of the soil. They just live in mud; build those tower-like nests out of it, walk about in it, and get their meals by scooping up mud and muddy water from the marshes where they live, on the borders of lakes and seas. They strain out the little creatures wiggling about in these scooped-up mouthfuls.

I. Feathered Farmers with Queer Noses

"What a funny nose! What happened to it?"

I knew you'd say that. Everybody does. But just watch now and see. That flamingo over there, stalking about on his stilt-like legs, sticks his long neck down to the muddy water, turns that funny nose upside down and——

"Why, of all things, is he going to stand on his head?"

WHY FLAMINGOES HAVE SUCH FUNNY NOSES

No, not that. Don't you see, he's getting his dinner? After that crooked scoop bill—for that's what it really is, a scoop—is filled, the water strains out through ridges along the edge of the bill and what's left is his food.

That picture looks as if it had a tremendous lot of flamingoes in it, doesn't it? It has. It's quite a town, Flamingoburg is. Although flamingoes are so wary about meeting two-legged people without feathers—that is, human beings—they're very sociable among themselves and there may be a thousand, even two thousand, pair in a single flamingo city, such as Doctor Chapman studied in the Bahama Islands some years ago.

Their nests are cupped-out hollows in little towers of dried mud raised a foot or so to keep high tides from swamping them. They scrape up the mud with that shovel-like bill. After the conical-tower nest is made, the mud piled up and patted into shape with her bill and feet, Mother Flamingo lays one or two eggs—and then she goes to setting. You notice there's just one little chick in the nest in the lower left-hand corner of the picture, and just one egg in the nest near by.

With such a low stool to sit on you wonder what the mother bird does with her long legs. In some pictures in children's nature books of not so many years ago you'll find her represented as sitting on the nest with her legs hanging down the sides—but you see that couldn't be; the nest isn't tall enough. What she really does is to fold her legs under her body; just once, of course, at the joint. But they're so long that, even when folded, they reach out beyond her tail. While setting, the lady birds reach around with their long necks shovelling up things to eat and gossiping, more or less, with the neighbors; for the nests, you notice, are very close together. Sometimes two of them will reach across the narrow alley that separates the residence of Mrs. Flamingo Smith from Mrs. Flamingo Jones, take each other playfully by the bill and hold together for a while. Maybe this is their way of saying "Good morning," or "How do you do?"

You'd hardly think it—with those long legs of theirs—but the flamingoes swim beautifully. With their long necks drawn back—the way swans do it, you know—they are very graceful, and a flock of them floating about is one of the loveliest sights in the world. They look like a big, fleecy, pink cloud resting right on the surface of the water. You can now find only a few flamingoes in Florida, where there used to be so many; but go on south into Central and South America and there are thousands of them. They are still fairly numerous in countries bordering the Mediterranean and the Indian Ocean. In Persia they are called "red geese." And the name isn't so far wrong as you'd think. You notice that, unlike those stilt-walkers, the herons, the flamingoes have webbed feet. Like geese and ducks, also, they have those rows of tooth-like ridges on the edges of their bills. It is these "teeth" that, coming together, act as strainers.

But a queer thing about their bills, besides the funny-way they have of crooking down all of a sudden, is that the upper bill is smaller and fits down into the lower. Stranger still, the birds can raise and lower this upper bill like the cover of a coffee-pot.

They can move the under bill a little, too, but not to amount to anything; so you see there was even more to the upside-downness of that bill than there seemed to be at first. The whole arrangement looks odd to us, but it works out beautifully for the birds. When they turn their heads upside down they can stir the ooze to various depths, as required, by using the upper bill as a ploughshare and setting it at different angles.

Although they've borrowed some ideas from both the goose and the heron families, the flamingoes are so different from either they are put into a family by themselves, the Phœnicopteridæ. This family name is from two Greek words meaning "red-winged." If you want to be formal in speaking of or to a goose you must refer to her family as the Anserinæ which is Latin for "geese."

A LATE BIRD, BUT HE GETS THE WORM

Another of the long-nosed earth workers, as curious in his make-up as the flamingoes, is the kiwi of New Zealand. Like the flamingo, the kiwi uses his queer bill to get his living out of the soil. You've heard the saying "it's the early bird that gets the worm"; but while this is true of most birds it doesn't apply to the kiwis. Although they live on worms, as does Mr. Early Bird of the proverb, they do their feeding by night.

And such a funny thing for a bird to do, the kiwis go about with their noses to the ground like a dog smelling after a rat. The reason they do this is that their nostrils are situated, not next to their heads, as in most birds, but at the end of the bill—and on purpose; for they locate their suppers, the worms in the earth, by the sense of smell, although most birds have a very poor sense of smell. Just after sunset, you'll see the kiwis moving about softly (as if they were afraid of scaring away the worms!), and with the tips of their bills against the ground.

"Sniff! Sniff!" (You actually can hear them sniff.)

There, he's found one! His bill is not only long, but bends rather easily and that's why, perhaps, he's able to follow up so closely the hints he gets from his nose as to the location of worms, for he usually brings the worm out whole, and not all pulled apart as the robins do it sometimes. He works in soft earth, where most worms are found, and generally drives his bill in up to his forehead. If all goes well he pulls it right out with the worm at the end; but if there is any likelihood of an accident, the kiwi gently moves his head and neck to and fro until he has the soil loosened up and so clears the way. Once the worm is fairly out of the ground, he throws up his head with a jerk and swallows it whole.

Because they roam about so much at night, the kiwis sleep much of the day. You'll find them in thickets or in among the forested hills, where they make their homes. Sometimes, however, you'll see one standing, leaning on his long bill, like a street-idler propping himself up with his cane. If you disturb him, he yawns, as if to say:

"Oh, these bores! Why can't they let a fellow alone?"

But don't you go too far and annoy him or he'll get real peevish and strike at you with his foot.

Both Mr. and Mrs. Kiwi drill the earth every day—or rather every night—in their search for worms, but Lady Kiwi does all the excavating when it comes to making the nest. This she does by digging a tunnel, generally under the roots of a tree fern. There she lays two eggs and then her family cares are practically over for the time being, since it is the male kiwi who does most of the setting.

In digging the tunnels for their nests the two birds work together, and these tunnels are sometimes fifteen feet long. So you see that with kingfishers scattered around the world as they are—some 200 species in all—they must have done an enormous amount of ploughing in the course of time; to say nothing of what they have done in the way of enriching the soil with fish-bones, one of the very best of all fertilizers.

The kingfisher's nest wouldn't be at all attractive to some birds—the swallows, for example, who are so particular about having feather-beds. It has just a hard-earth floor like the cabins of the American pioneers, but the little kingfishers are perfectly contented and happy; for their meals are very plentiful, fairly regular, and the fish are always fresh.

FISHING DAYS AND OTHER DAYS

But some days even the kingfishers don't have fish for dinner. Instead they serve crayfish and frogs. This is on cloudy days, or when the wind is stiff and the water rough. On such days even the keen eyes of the kingfisher can't see a fish or make out exactly where the fish is when he does see one. But on clear, quiet days, you should see him fish. He often dives from a perch fifty feet or more above the creek and strikes the water so hard you'd think it would knock the breath out of him. But up he comes with his fish, nearly every time!

Of course he misses occasionally, but just think of seeing a fish that far away—under the water, mind you; and not a big fish, but a little minnow, only two or three inches long.

II. Under the Oven-Bird's Friendly Roof

Another great little farmer is the oven-bird. We can't afford to miss him and his wife for anything; and although we have to go to South America to meet them, we'll do it. So here we are! The oven-birds build a nest of clay mixed with some hair or grass or real fine little roots. This nest, when it's all done—it takes a good while to build it—is so big you'd hardly believe it was the home of so small a bird. It's a dome-shaped affair, like a Dutch oven. In the United States we have what we call an "oven-bird," too—one of the water-thrushes; but as its dome-shaped nest is made of grass and leaves and has no clay in it, we will not include this bird among the feathered farmers. The oven-bird of South America knows how to build its dome of clay without any scaffolding, which isn't easy.

OVEN-BIRD DOORS AND THE FRIENDLY ROAD

While the big flamingoes are so shy, the little oven-birds don't care who sees them—provided they can see him first. This is possibly because they want to keep an eye on any suspicious movements; for they make it an invariable rule to build so that their front doors will face the road. But really I think they do this, not because they are suspicious, but because they want to be neighborly and arrange their homes so they can sit on their front stoop and watch the crowd go by. They not only have their doors where they can see what's going on, but they nearly always build near the country road or the village street, and in the most conspicuous place they can find, instead of staying off by themselves in those vast, lonesome woods of Brazil where they lived before man came.

When a nest is to be built the oven-bird picks up the first likely-looking root fibre, or a horsehair, or a hair from an old cow's tail, carries it to some pond or puddle and, with this binding material, works bits of mud into a little ball about the size of a filbert. Then he flies with this pellet to the place where the nest is going up. With clay balls like this laid down and then worked together, the two birds make the floor of their little house. On the outer edge of the floor they build up the walls. These walls they gradually incline inward, just as the Eskimos build their snow-block huts, until they form a dome with a little hole in it. The last little ball they bring goes to fill that little hole and then the house is done, so far as the walls and roof are concerned. Next, a front door is cut through the wall that faces the road.

From the front door a partition is built reaching nearly to the back of the house, shutting off the front room from the family bedroom. After the eggs are laid Papa Oven-bird stays in the front room—or thereabouts—while mamma sets in the back room. The object of the little partition seems to be to protect mother and the eggs and, when they come, the babies from wind and rain. When the four or five baby birds arrive both papa and mamma put in most of their time, of course, feeding them.

The nests of the oven-birds weigh eight or nine pounds. The work of these little feathered farmers and their wives reminds us in more ways than one of that of Mrs. Mason-Bee,[22] but they evidently have quite different notions about housekeeping; for, although their residences are so big, the oven-birds would evidently rather build than clean house, while with Mrs. Bee it's just the other way. The nests of the oven-birds are so thick and strong they often stand for two or three years in spite of the rains; but the birds build a new nest every year, nevertheless.

III. The Mound-Builders

Another class of birds that have a fancy for big dome-like nests are the mound-birds. We find them in Australia, the Philippines, and the islands of the South Seas. Their scientific nickname is Megapoddidae, the "big-footed." It's with their big feet that they pile immense heaps of leaves, twigs, and rotten wood over their eggs.

And what for, do you suppose?

To hatch them! This heap of material not only absorbs the heat of the sun, but, in decaying, makes heat of its own. These mounds, of course, contribute tons and tons of fertilizer to the soil, but what interests the birds is that these warm heaps hatch their eggs. It's a kind of an incubator system, you see. As it is with many tens of thousands of our own little chickens, these days, the baby megapodes are born orphans. That heap of dead sticks, leaves, and earth is all the mother they ever know. As soon as the mother birds have laid their eggs in the mounds and covered them up, they go off gossiping with other lady megapodes, and don't bother their heads any more about their babies.

WHY LITTLE BIG FOOT NEVER SAYS "MAMMA"

But it really doesn't seem to matter. It's more of a question of sentiment than anything else, for the babies get on very well by themselves. When the time comes they not only make their own way out of the shell, as all birds do, but they work their way up through the rubbish-heap and run off at once into the woods to hunt something to eat.

It's all right, after all, I suppose; but if I were a little mound-builder's baby, I'd rather have a mamma that would stay around and go places with me, wouldn't you?

There's one nice thing about these mamma mound-builders, though; they're so neighborly and sociable. It's like a regular old-fashioned quilting party to see them build a nest. The birds look like turkeys, and one of the species is called the "brush turkey," but they are no bigger than an ordinary chicken—than a rather small chicken, in fact. When I tell you, then, that these mounds of theirs are often six feet high and twelve feet across in the widest part, the middle, you can see it takes good team-work to put them up.

So a lot of the lady mound-builders get together in woodsy places, where there's plenty of leaves and twigs lying around and together build a mound. One will run forward a little way, rake up and grasp a handful of sticks and leaves—I mean to say a footful—and kick it backward. The motion is much like that of an old hen scratching. Then another bird gathers a footful; then another, and soon they are all throwing the rubbish toward the same pile; all as busy as a sewing-circle, but—curiously enough—nobody saying a word! Before the mounds are quite done, they all begin laying their eggs in them; as many as forty or fifty, before they are through.

Some species frequent scrubby jungles along the sea. These scratch a slanting hole in the sandy soil about three feet deep and lay their eggs on the bottom, loosely covering up the mouth of the hole with a collection of sticks, shells, and seaweed. The natives say these birds, before they leave, go carefully over the footprints leading to this treasure-house, scratch them out and make tracks leading in various directions away from the nest. And all species lay their eggs at night. You see why, don't you? They're just that cautious.

SUCH AN EGG FROM SUCH A BIRD

"There is a very singular bird called Tabon. What I and very many more admired[23] is that being in body no bigger than an ordinary chicken, it lays an egg larger than a goose's."

"So," he adds, "the egg is bigger than the bird itself!"

IV. THE SWALLOWS

To make the acquaintance of either the mound-builders or those dear little oven-birds—aren't they dear?—we must be travellers, of course, for with their short wings neither the mound-builders nor the oven-birds ever could come all the way up here to see us. But another feathered farmer—and, like the oven-bird, a clay-worker and most neighborly—everybody knows; the swallow. Like Kim, the swallow is the little friend of all the world.

Swallows of one kind and another are found everywhere—almost everywhere that people can live; usually where people do live. And if all the soil they've helped pulverize and mix—even since the days when the swallows built under the eaves and rafters of the ark—was spread out, it would easily make another Egypt, I do believe!

But, speaking of the way swallows take to human society, do you know where our barn-swallows came from? They were originally cliff-dwellers away out West. The early explorers found enormous collections of their nests plastered all over the perpendicular cliffs and along the bluffs. Just as soon, however, as the country settled up and men put up barns these little cliff-dwellers, deserting rocks and bluffs, began building their bottle-shaped nests under the eaves. The swallows live on insects—including squash-bugs, stink-bugs, shield-bugs, and jumping plant-lice; and that's supposed to be one of the reasons for the curious fact that they left their ancient family seats—they found so many more insects about the barns and the farmer's fields and the gardens and the orchards.

TINY SOIL MILLS OF THE BABY SWALLOW

Haven't you often watched them and listened to them, diving and chattering around the barn in their busy season; that is to say, in the spring and summer time? Then the air is full of insects and is fairly woven with their darting wings. Some keep busy picking up the insects that are always hovering about in a barnyard, while others dash away to some near-by marsh or to the meadow or to the creek. Over the grain-fields they go, over the meadows and back again straight to the nest where downy babies are cheeping for them. The parents feed them, stop and chatter a moment, and then off they go. Follow that one down to the marsh. See how she flies high, round and round in circles, and then swoops for an insect. She missed him! Then she wheels, darts up—darts down—to right—to left. There, she's got him! Then off like an arrow to the nest. The soft-bodied insects are chosen and chewed up for the babies, while the parents eat the tougher ones. And to help digestion they give the babies little bits of gravel, although they don't use it themselves. So, in grinding up this gravel the baby birds help make soil before they are old enough to do any nest-building.