‘ae 
NORTHERN OCEAN. 239 
and their fkins of fo little value, that the Indians 1771. 
generally finge them, even tothe amount of ma- 
ny thoufands in one Summer. They have from 
two to five young, at atime. Mr. Dobbs, in his 
Account of Hudfon’s Bay, enumerates no lefs 
than eight different kinds of beaver; but it muft 
be underftood that they are all of one kind and 
fpecies; his diftinétions arife wholly from the 
different feafons of the year in which they are 
killed, and the different ufes to which their fkins 
are applied which is the fole reafon that they vary 
fo much in value. 
Jofeph Lefranc, or Mr. Dobbs for him, fays, 
that a good hunter can kill fix hundred beaver 
in one feafon, and can only carry one hundred to 
market. If that was really the cafe in Lefranc’s 
time, the canoes muft have been much fmaller 
than they are at prefent; for it is well known 
that the generality of the canoes which have vifit- 
ed the Company’s Factories for the laft forty or 
fifty years, are capable of carrying three hundred 
beaver-fkins with great eafe, exclufive of the Indi- 
ans luggage, provifions, &9c. 
If ever a particular Indian killed fix hundred 
beaver in one Winter, (which is rather to be 
doubted,) it is more than probable that many in 
his company did not kill twenty, and perhaps 
fome none at all, fo that by diftributing them 
among thofe who had bad fuccefs, and others who 
had no abilities for that kind of hunting, there 
would 
a 
December. 
