CHAPTER XI 

 BEAVER AND NUTRIA 



Beaver and nutria are no relation in the animal kingdom. 

 Yet they are brothers in the fur world. The fur trader scouts the 

 resemblance of the two furs ; yet the average layman has to look 

 twice to distinguish them, especially if both have seen a couple of 

 seasons' wear and are a little faded and a little matted. 



As bought new, they are easily distinguished. Beaver is a 

 deep, thick, heavy fur. Nutria is a thick fur but is neither deep 

 nor heavy. Beaver has a silvery gray lustre. Nutria is a sepia 

 brown and has very little lustre. Both furs have been plucked of 

 coarse over hair. Both have at first a tendency to curl or crisp ; 

 but beaver is always the silvery gray, nutria the sepia brown. 

 Lastly and most important of all, beaver is never dyed. Therefore 

 the skin below the pelage and down is white ; and the down is bluish 

 gray. Nutria is nearly always dyed. Therefore the skin below is 

 golden, and the down fur below the pelage is sepia. 



Both furs have their uses ; beaver for cold weather, nutria for 

 raw weather. Both furs mat in the damp and lose lustre. Beaver 

 wears like buffalo hide. Nutria except as a trimming is not a dur- 

 able fur ; and the prices of these furs, whatever the whims of fash- 

 ion, should never be nearer each other than one for the nutria and 

 three for the beaver. 



In fur-trade parlance, nutria may be described as the poor 

 younger brother of the rich stronger beaver. 



The beaver is a castor; the nutria, a poor little water rat of 

 South America, like our muskrat of the North. 



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