GNAWING ANIMALS — RODENTS 111 



date and that their fur was in request for exportation 

 until the end of the fifteenth century.'^ Mr. Millais 

 questions the statement of Boece that beavers fre- 

 quented Loch Ness, since all the beavers he saw in 

 Canada, North America and Newfoundland were 

 living on running streams or narrow lakes through 

 which the water was flowing. 



The beaver is a very large rodent, specially 

 adapted to its aquatic mode of life. There is generally 

 a living specimen in the Zoological Gardens, but it 

 rarely shows itself, and everyone should make them- 

 selves acquainted with the form of this remai'kable 

 and interesting animal by means of the stuffed speci- 

 mens in the Natural History Museum. The hind 

 feet are webbed, but the fore-feet are not. The 

 tail, as the Welsh name implies, is broad and flat 

 and covered with scales. It serves its owner, who 

 is an adept swimmer, as a rudder. The eyes and 

 ears are small, as is usual with aquatic animals. 



William Harrison, in his ^Elizabethan England,^"^ 

 gives a very picturesque description of the beaver : 

 " And likewise of the beaver, whose hinder feet and 

 tail only are supposed to be fish. Certes the tail of 

 this beast is like unto a thin whetstone, as the body 

 unto a monstrous rat: as the beast also itself is of such 

 force in the teeth that it will gnaw a hole through a 

 thick plank, or shore through a double billet in a 

 night ; it loveth also the stillest rivers, and it is given 

 to them by nature to go by flocks unto the woods at 

 hand, where they gather sticks wherewith to build 

 their nests, wherein their bodies lie dry above the 



* Camelot Series, ' Elizabethan England/ p. 170. 



