704 RODENTIA. 



a soft grayish-brown. The total length of the animal is about three feet 

 and a half; the flat, paddle-shaped, scale-covered tail being about one 

 foot in length. The flesh of the Beaver is eaten by the trappers, who 

 compare it to flabby pork. The tail is something like beef marrow, when 

 properly cooked, but it is too rich and oily to suit the taste of most per- 

 sons. The female Beaver produces about three or four young at a litter, 

 and the little creatures are born with open eyes. 



The Beaver secretes a curious odoriferous substance called castonum 

 or " barkstone." According to Audubon, " If two Beaver lodges are 

 tolerably near each other, the inhabitants of the one lodge, which we will 

 call lodge A, go to a little distance for the purpose of ridding themselves 

 of the superabundant castoreum. The Beavers of lodge B, smelling the 

 castoreum, go to the same spot, and cover the odoriterous substance with 

 a thick layer of earth and leaves. They then place their own castoreum 

 upon the heap, and return home. The inhabitants of lodge A then go 

 through precisely the same process, until they have raised a mound some 

 four or five feet in height." 



THE EUROPEAN BEAVER. 



The European Beaver, Castor fiber, lives usually under conditions 

 which do not require it to build a house. Hence in France it has aban- 

 doned a communal life, and takes refuge in the rocky crevices that over- 

 hang streams. In place of being a builder, it has become a miner. On 

 the Rhine the Beavers frequent uninhabited islands ; their burrows com- 

 municate with the water by a long gallery opening beneath the surface. 

 These exxavations are sometimes of considerable size, one having been 

 seen that measured fifty feet in length, and was divided into several com- 

 partments. 



Colonies of Constructive Beavers are yet to be found in Europe. 

 This fact was noted in 1787 by a German observer, not far from Magde- 

 burg, on one of the affluents of the Elbe. A number had collected in 

 this place, and had built huts in every respect similar to those of 

 American Beavers. Such colonies are, as may be imagined, excessively 

 rare, and excite the greatest amount of curiosity. 



An attempt to rear the Beaver in a domestic state was undertaken by 

 Exinger, of Vienna, on the banks of a large pond situated in the vicinity 

 of Modin, Poland. The Beavers belonged to those which burrow in the 



