At The Sound Of Their Voices, All The Beavers,
Busy As Well As Idle, Dived At Once Beneath The Surface, And Were
No More To Be Seen.
Captain Bonneville regretted this
interruption.
He had heard much of the sagacity of the beaver in
cutting down trees, in which, it is said, they manage to make
them fall into the water, and in such a position and direction as
may be most favorable for conveyance to the desired point. In the
present instance, the tree was a tall straight pine, and as it
grew perpendicularly, and there was not a breath of air stirring
the beaver could have felled it in any direction he pleased, if
really capable of exercising a discretion in the matter. He was
evidently engaged in "belting" the tree, and his first incision
had been on the side nearest to the water.
Captain Bonneville, however, discredits, on the whole, the
alleged sagacity of the beaver in this particular, and thinks the
animal has no other aim than to get the tree down, without any of
the subtle calculation as to its mode or direction of falling.
This attribute, he thinks, has been ascribed to them from the
circumstance that most trees growing near water-courses, either
lean bodily toward the stream, or stretch their largest limbs in
that direction, to benefit by the space, the light, and the air
to be found there. The beaver, of course, attacks those trees
which are nearest at hand, and on the banks of the stream or
pond.
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Words from 59865 to 60121
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