on insects, cannot afford to wait until the insects
which thrive upon the leaves of aquatic plants fall into the water. So
as he cannot leap high enough to catch them, he fills his mouth with
water and squirts it at an insect with such aim and force that he rarely
fails to knock the insect into the water where he can easily catch it.
Many other animals squirt various liquids, occasionally in attack, but
most times in defence. The fish makes a veritable squirt-gun of his
mouth.

Beavers use sticks, chips, and even stones in building their dams; and
their engineering abilities are astounding. They are also capable of
meeting emergencies, as shown by the following incident. A farmer in
Michigan discovered one morning, just after a flood, that all his potato
sacks, which had been hung on a back fence to dry, had suddenly
disappeared. A few days later he found them in a nearby beavers' colony,
used in rebuilding their dam, which had suddenly overflowed. The beavers
wasted no time, when they discovered their danger, in meeting the
emergency by using the sacks to prevent the destruction of their home.

Monkeys make skilled use of clubs and stones in capturing their prey and
fighting their enemies.

The skill with which some of them throw pebbles would lead us to believe
they have already reached the degree of civilisation that many tribes of
savages had reached only a few years ago, when they learned to use the
boomerang and lasso. Some naturalists claim that monkeys actually set
pitfalls for their enemies and lie in wait for them to be caught, just
as a hunter would do.

Elephants also know the value of clubs in warfare, and will often use a
broken limb of a dead tree as a weapon of defence. The story is told and
vouched for by Mr. William B. Smith that on his farm, near Mount
Lookout, a few years ago a donkey grazed in the same pasture with a
ferocious bull. He was frequently attacked by the bull, and always got
the worst of the fight. His feet were no match for the bull's horns, but
one day the mule grabbed a long pole in his mouth, and, whirling it
about, almost killed the bull, and henceforth the two lived on the best
of terms in the same pasture.

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 an