Book: The Human Side of Animals

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I have a friend who owns a cow that knows exactly how to lift an iron
latch to the barn door with her tongue and open the door. Innumerable
times she has opened a gate in the same way to permit her calf to go
free with her. So skilled is she in the manipulation of doors and
latches that we are tempted to believe in some previous state of
existence she was a professional lock-picker!

Cats and dogs are famed for their ability to open doors by pulling
latch-strings. And not a few cats show a strong desire to study music by
walking up and down the keyboard of a piano!

Monkeys who live near the seashore show wonderful aptness in opening
oysters and shell-fish with sharp stones, exactly as a man would do.
Monkeys have already reached the degree of civilization where they
select the stones best suited for their work, and from their progress in
the past it is reasonable to believe that in the near future they will
not only be able to make their own tools--thus placing themselves on a
mental footing with our flint-chipping ancestors of the early stone
age,--but will also learn the use of fire and eventually the use of guns
and ammunition, which marks one of the most important epochs in the
evolution of the human species.

The chimpanzees, gorillas, and apes of the African forests have many
times been observed in the act of piling brushwood upon the fires left
by travellers, and though they do not know how to kindle a fire, they
have learned how to keep it burning. The tame ones soon learn how to
ignite matches, and often do great harm by starting forest fires.

But they show quite as much intelligence about the use of fire as the
average small child. In fact, it has been thought by a number of great
scholars that man had not yet made his appearance upon the earth in the
miocene age, and that all the marvellous chipped flints of that age
belong to semi-human pithecoid apes of wonderful intelligence. There is
surely nothing in the facts of natural history, nor in Darwin's theory
of evolution, that makes such a supposition unbelievable.

Baboons use poles as levers, stones as hammers, and seem to understand
the more simple mechanical devices. Prantl claims that man is the only
animal capable of using fire but not a few baboons know how to strike a
match, heap dried leaves over the blaze to make it burn, and then heap
on dead wood to feed the fire. This knowledge with them, exactly as with
primitive peoples, is a product of long experience and does not show any
mathematical truths or principles any more than making a direct cut
across a field implies "knowledge of the relation of a hypothenuse to
the two other sides of a right-angled triangle." This is what Prantl
calls "spontaneous mathematical thinking."

I knew of a tame ape in Chicago that learned to swing from the end of a
clothes-line and seemed to enjoy it very much. The line was just the
right length and properly hung so as to allow the ape to swing out from
a kitchen window and touch the ground. Just for fun, some one cut a
piece from the line so that he could not reach the ground; immediately
the ape hunted another piece of cord, tying it to the end of his line so
as to increase its length, and much to his delight, continued to swing
on the line.

The distinctive features of animal protection and home government,
especially in the higher groups, may compare favourably with any of the
methods used by civilised man. This is true both of their offensive and
defensive contrivances and for their monarchies and republics. They use
shells, scales, plates of every kind, with innumerable modifications for
various purposes--spines and allied armaments--all shapes and sizes;
poisonous secretions, deadly odours, strong claws and teeth wielded by
strong muscles, and form colonies that are more than a gregarious
association. In most cases, they have communities composed of
individuals living individual lives, yet which act in cases of need as
one unit.




X

ANIMAL ARCHITECTS, ENGINEERS, AND HOUSE BUILDERS

_"The heart is hard that is not pleased
With sight of animals enjoying life,
Nor feels their happiness augment his own."_


The most popular and perhaps the most interesting department of
natural-history study is that which treats of the manner in which
animals utilise the various materials of the universe for purposes of
protection, for war and defence, for raiment, food, and even the
luxuries of life. Man, by his superior power of 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
produced by some animals. The beaver, for example, shows a more profound
knowledge of hydraulics than man himself. The power possessed by these
craftsmen, not only in felling trees, but in duly selecting the best
places for making homes and in appropriating substances suitable for
their needs, is a never-ending marvel!

Nowhere can we find a greater animal-workman than the beaver. He belongs
to the great burrowing family, and is also extremely graceful in the
water. Long ago he learned the advantages of co-operation, and he unites
with his fellows in building dams of felled trees, which have been cut
up into 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 extremely sociable, but they ordinarily live quite
independently of each other, except in cases where they chance to
congregate because of favourable conditions. The beavers, on the other
hand, thoroughly understand the benefits of united labour, and work
together for the good of the community.

Beavers, if their skill were generally known, would have a great
reputation among their human friends. Recently, at the New York
Zoological Gardens, a visitor was pointing out different animals to his
little son, and when he came to the beaver pond, referred to two of
these dam-builders and tree-cutters, which were swimming through the
water with large sticks in their mouths, as big rats!

Young beavers make their appearance in May, and there are usually from
four to eight to a family. These kittens, as they are called, are odd
looking little fellows, with big heads, large sharp teeth, flat tails,
like little fat paddles, and delicate, soft, mouse-like fur, not at all
coarse like that of their parents. If 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 cry of the young beaver is exactly like that of the baby child. One
of my friends in Michigan recently stopped at an Indian's house to see a
real live baby beaver. "He cry all same as papoose," remarked the squaw,
as she brought the young beaver out of the house, giving him a little
slap to start him crying--and cry he did!

The body of a grown beaver is usually about thirty inches long, and
something over eleven inches wide; it weighs about sixty pounds. The
fore-paws are quite small in comparison with the rest of the 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 is oft-times a foot long, five
inches in width, and an inch in thickness. The colour of the beaver
varies; there are black beavers, white beavers, and brown beavers. The
black are the best known.

The beaver is well equipped for defending himself, and for carrying out
his architectural schemes. His jet black tail, which is like a large
paddle, covered with horny scales, he uses in many ways. With it he
turns the body in any desired 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 within a half-mile
distance. The stroke of the tail sounds not unlike a pistol shot. As
soon as a beaver sounds the alarm all others dive underneath the water.
His teeth are expressly suited by nature for cutting and chiselling out
trees.

The dam is the beaver's masterpiece. In the alder or birch swamps, where
he usually lives, he oft-times builds from six to eight little dams from
knoll to knoll, and in this way makes a pond sufficiently large for his
purposes. The average beaver dam is from twenty 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 above the pool. It is constructed mainly of alder
poles, which are arranged side by side, and their length is parallel
with the direction of the current. To create a pond for himself and
provide against drought is the chief aim of the beaver in building his
dam.

Just how these dams are built; who plans the job; who sees that it is
carried out; whether each works under his own impulse or whether they
co-operate; when they begin and how they finish; all these things are
unknown to man. The investigation 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 as much as on a moonlight night. No doubt the darkness gives them
a sense of security which aids their work. Anyway, in the completed job,
we see the evidences of a skilled engineer and architect, and one who
knew thoroughly what he was about.

The size of a dam depends entirely upon the wishes of its builders and
location and general conditions of land and water. Sometimes the more
ambitious beavers build a dam a quarter of a mile in length. They employ
exactly the same principle as is used in making a mill-dam. Beavers,
however, were building dams long before millers came into 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 ordinary mill-dam. Many scientific thinkers
claim that the beaver employs this principle of construction without
knowing it. How absurd! Who can be sure that he doesn't know it?
Scientists of the old school desire proof before they will accept
anything as a fact, yet they themselves repeatedly make wild statements
without proper substantiation.

It is not unusual for a beaver family to select a home on the bank of a
pond, lake, or stream whose waters are sufficiently deep and abundant
for all their needs. In such a case dams are not needed, and regulation
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 sufficient depth
to conceal the beavers, and to prevent obstruction by ice. The entrance
to the beaver's home is almost always under the water. This arrangement
safeguards the home from predatory enemies.

During the summer months, beavers are inclined to live alone, except
when a new home occupies their attention; but when autumn comes, the
various families of a 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 young, aids in repairing the dam and
dwellings, which have been allowed to fall into decay. The cutting and
felling of trees is the first important work to be done.

These interesting "tree-cutters" usually work in pairs, and are
sometimes assisted by younger beavers; thus the family works together in
cutting and felling the trees, but in other forms of labour it seems
that several families work together. 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 sure of
their definite direction of escape, then they continue to gnaw until it
begins to fall, whereupon they plunge into the stream, usually, where
they remain for some time lest the noise of the falling tree attract the
attention of enemies.

Their next work is to cut up the tree into sections which they can
remove. If the tree is not too large and has already fallen in the
water, they take it as it is, otherwise it must be cut up and conveyed
to 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 be
removed downhill. From tame beavers we have learned that they remove
smaller limbs by seizing them with their teeth, throwing the loose end
over their shoulder, and then dragging them to their destination.

These water-loving animals rely mainly upon their native element for the
movement of lumber and food, and to aid this they employ engineering
skill that is rivalled only by their feats of tree-cutting and
dam-building. This constructive faculty is shown largely in their
canal-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
unbelievable; every particle of dirt is carried away between their chin
and fore-paws. This earth is sometimes used in plastering up a nearby
dam or repairing their winter home. Small and tender twigs are
transported to the vicinity of their lodges, and then sunk for winter
food.

Mr. Morgan has made a close study of these canals, and in speaking of
them he says that when he first saw them, and heard them called canals,
he doubted their artificial origin; but upon examination he found that
they were unquestionably beaver excavations. He considers 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 these canals. No one
who has ever understood the ways of the beaver can believe that he is
not exceedingly intelligent. The banks of these canals soon become
covered with growing plants and moss, and they look not unlike slow
sluggish streams winding through the marshy lands.

[Illustration: THE BEAVER IS THE GREATEST OF ALL ANIMAL ARCHITECTS. HIS
SKILL IS EQUALLED ONLY BY HIS PATIENCE.]

The beaver huts, or "lodges" as they are usually called, look not unlike
beehives, somewhat broader at the base, with thick walls and roof,
four to six feet in thickness. They are formed of numbers of 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 smoothed and polished
like waxed floors by the feet of the occupants. Around the outer border
of each polished floor is dry grass used for Mrs. Beaver's nursery, and
here the young beavers sleep and play.

From the outside these beaver huts resemble Esquimaux snow-houses, being
almost circular in form, and domed. The walls are quite thick enough to
keep out the cold, but with all the beaver's ingenuity, he is helpless
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 know that it is
a crime to take the life of a being unnecessarily. Only human life is
sacred to them! To realize the wonderful work of beavers, and then to
act as we do toward them is unworthy of our civilisation.

An interesting cousin of the beaver, the musquash or muskrat, and called
by the Indians the beaver's "little brother," is also a house-builder
and engineer of no mean 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 ponds. Here he mingles
in groups of his own kin, and together they build houses, work and play,
dive and swim, with almost as much skill as their big beaver brothers.

The muskrat is a skilled engineer, and delights in tunnelling. His home
consists of a large rounded chamber which is reached by a long burrow
from the side of a stream. From his main living-room are oftentimes
found a number of smaller 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 made of heaps of dead grass
and weeds which are cemented together with mud and clay; at other times
they contain no mud or clay, and seem to be only piles of tender roots
and swamp grasses to be used for food during the long, cold winters.

From his physical appearance, the muskrat is well prepared to do his
work: he is stoutly built, with a body about a foot in length, not
including the tail; has small eyes, and tiny ears, partly covered with
fur. In the winter, as food gets scarce, he begins to eat even the
walls of his house, and by the time his home is gone--spring has
arrived!

A most unusual family of skilled house-builders are the brush-tailed
rat-kangaroos, or Jerboa kangaroos of Australia and Tasmania. They are
no larger than an ordinary rabbit, but they have cousins who are as
large as a man. These rat-kangaroos have most interesting tails, covered
with long 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 rather poorly constructed, and whose chief interest lies in the
unusual way the kangaroos have of carrying all the building materials,
like tiny bundles of hay, held compactly in their tails. There is no
other workman among the animals that employs quite this method of
transporting materials.

The rat-kangaroos have a dainty little brown cousin that lives in
Africa, and who is occasionally seen jumping around on the ground,
underneath bushes, and near damp springs. He is very small, not over
three inches in length, and is like a miniature kangaroo, except for his
long tail. Like their great cousins--the kangaroos--Mrs. Jerboa often
carries her babies on her back when she goes out to seek food.

In the Great Sahara Desert, parched and dry, are found numerous cities
of these little animals. With the exception of a few birds, reptiles,
jackals and hyenas, they are the only inhabitants 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 the hard, dry soil. And these tunnels are the result of
combined labour on the part of the entire community. The least alarm
causes them to scuffle away into their underground homes.

One of the larger species of Central Asia employs a stratagem that is
remarkable. Like their cousins of Africa, they live in a great
underground city which is a perfect network of burrows which end 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 appears from
above the surface of the earth, but if an enemy invades the burrow, away
the jerboas rush for this secret exit and break through to the surface
out of reach of the trouble, and escape.

These African jerboas are exceedingly odd in appearance, and they are
two-legged in their habits of walk, and never go on all-fours. They walk
by placing one hind foot alternately before the other; and they run in
the same way. They can leap an extraordinary distance.

Frogs and toads, as a class, are not so skilled in house-building as
some of their higher relations, but there is one of their number--the
_Hyla faber_--that is remarkably gifted in building mud houses. He lives
in Brazil, and the natives call him the _ferreiro_, or smith, and he is
indeed the master-builder of his family. 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 about four inches above the surface of the water. It looks not
unlike a small volcano, and the inside is skilfully smoothed. This has
been done by Mrs. Frog's artistic hands. When the house is entirely
completed, Mrs. Frog lays a great number of eggs, and here they are
quite safe from enemies both as eggs and baby tadpoles.

Mr. Frog seems little concerned in the building of the home, but he does
take pleasure in croaking for Mrs. Frog while she works. Perhaps this
is to her heart genuine music, and his faithful attention to their
children makes up for his love of idleness!

Perhaps the strangest animal engineer in the world is found in
Madagascar and Australia. It is the duckbill or duckmole, and is
scientifically known as the _Ornithorhynchus paradoxus_. The natives of
Australia call it by several names: _Mallangong_, _Tambreet_, and not a
few call it, _Tohunbuck_.

This odd little aquatic engineer digs long tunnels of great intricacy in
the bands of lazy rivers, and because of its paradoxical nature and
appearance has caused 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 other mammals, it gives birth to its young,
and does not lay eggs, as is so often claimed for it. When swimming it
looks like a bunch of floating weeds or grass.

Its home is always on the banks of a stream, and is always provided with
two entrances: one below the surface of the water, and the other above.
This insures escape in case 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 serpent, to
the right, and to the left, and is so annoyingly variable in its sinuous
course that even the natives have great trouble in digging the duckbill
out of its nest.

The nest is oval in form, and is well-carpeted with dry weeds and grass.
Here the young reside on soft beds until they are large enough to care
for themselves. There are from one to four in each nest.

There are no greater architects in the universe than may be found among
the coral-polypes. These interesting little animals of the deep have
been much misunderstood, and have sometimes had the erroneous
designation of "insect" bestowed upon them. The word "insect" has been
applied in a very loose and general sense in other days; but naturalists
and scientists should see to it that the use of this term be corrected
in reference to these wonderful coral-architects, and that no informed
person refer to them except as animals. Even poets have been guilty of
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
manufacture or secrete from their own bodies the coral substance out of
which the great reefs are built. It is a part of their life work and
nature, as a flower produces its own colours and shapes; it is amusing
to know that it has only been about one hundred and fifty years since it
was discovered not to be a plant but an animal! Even Ovid states the
popular belief of the classic period when he speaks of the coral as a
seaweed "which existed in a soft state as long as it remained in the
sea, but had the curious property of becoming hard on exposure to the
air."

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