82 SKETCH OF THE HISTORY OF MAMMALIA. 



its fur, but for its musk, which bears a very high price." 

 It is common along the Euphrates, and a skin sent home 

 by Col. Chesney is in the possession of the Zool. Soc. 

 Lond. The beaver occurs also along some of the larger 

 rivers of Europe, as the Rhone, the Danube, the Weser, 

 and the Nuthe, near its confluence with the Elbe. It 

 was formerly an inhabitant of our own island, and Gi- 

 raldus Cambrensis gives us a short account of their man- 

 ners in Wales; but in his time (1188) they were only 

 found in the river Teify. By the laws of Hoel-dda, the 

 price of a beaver's skin was fixed at 120 pence, a great 

 sum in those days. Whether the European, Asiatic, 

 and American beavers are specifically identical or not, 

 yet remains to be determined. Certain it is that the 

 European beaver, as proved by the little colony in the 

 Nuthe, displays the same manners and building propen- 

 sities as its transatlantic brethren ; and per contra, the 

 thinly scattered beavers, near the settlements in America 

 are solitary animals, dwelling in burrows like the scat- 

 tered few along the Rhone, though it must be observed 

 that one from the latter river in captivity exhibited as 

 marked a constructive disposition as any American beaver 

 under the same restrictions. The mode of building as 

 conducted by the beaver of America is described by 

 Hearne with great clearness and the absence of the or- 

 dinary exaggeration. The situation chosen is various : 

 where the beavers are numerous, they tenant lakes, rivers, 

 and creeks, esj)ecially the two latter, for the sake of the 

 current, of which they avail themselves in the transport- 

 ation of the materials. They also choose such parts as 

 have a depth of water beyond the freezing-power to 

 congeal at the bottom. In small rivers or creeks in 

 which the water is liable to be drained off when the 

 back- supplies are dried up by the frost, they are led by 

 instinct to make a dam quite across the river, at a con- 

 venient distance from their houses, thus artificially pro- 

 curing a deep body of water in which to build. The 

 dam varies in shape : where the current is gentle, it is 

 carried out straight ; but where rapid it is bowed, pre- 

 senting a convexity to the current. The materials used 



