NORTHERN OCEAN. 
enemies, or guard them againft the extreme cold 
| in Winter. . 
The quiquehatches, or wolvereers, are great 
| enemies to the beaver; and if there were a 
paflage into their houfes on the land-fide, would 
not leave one of them alive wherever they 
came. 
I cannot refrain from f{miling, when I read the 
accounts of different Authors who have written 
on the ceconomy of thofe animals, as there feems 
to be aconteft between them, who {hall moft ex- 
ceed in fiction. But the Compiler of the Won- 
ders of Nature and Art feems, in my opinion, to 
have fucceeded beft in this refpeét; as he has not 
only collected all the fictions into which other 
writers on the fubject have run, but has fo great- 
ly improved on them, that little remains to be 
added to his account of the beaver, befide a voca- 
bulary of their language, a code of their laws, and 
a fketch of their religion, to make it the moft 
complete natural hiftory of that animal which can 
_poffibly be offered to the public. 
There cannot be a greater impofition, or indeed 
a groffer infult, on common underftanding, than 
the wifh to make us believe the ftories of fome of 
the works afcribed to the beaver; and though it 
is not to be fuppofed that the compiler of a gene- 
ral work can be intimately acquainted with every 
fubject of which it may be neceflary to treat, yet a 
yery moderate fhare of underftanding is furely 
fufficient to guard him againft giving credit to 
fuch 
131 
bata 
(ashen 
December. 7 
