68 The Home of the Wolverene and Beaver. 



to the other instinctive actions of brute animals 

 straying through their haunts, should more excite 

 and actuate us to the admiration, praise, and adora- 

 tion of the Divine Being. In the said cell is an 

 aperture, which serves for a door, through which 

 the beavers go in and out. When they are all 

 abroad, the hunters put a kind of a little fastening 

 on that opening or door in such a manner that, on 

 the entrance of the first beaver, it should fall and 

 close up the whole aperture as far as it goes. Thus 

 shut up, the beaver which is within is hindered 

 from going out, and is taken. But as to what is 

 hitherto related concerning the beaver and his 

 manners I ha\-e not attained by my own experience, 

 nor could I learn, because through that whole 

 district where my duty as a missionary lay, this 

 animal never came in my way ; but what I have 

 heard from Laplanders inhabiting those places 

 resorted by beavers, I faithfully relate." 



So runs old Pinkerton, and there is far more truth 

 than extravagance in what he thus records. The 

 idea of one beaver lying down on its back to be 

 dragged along the ground by its companion is most 

 amusing, and doubtless is the foundation for some 

 of the wondrous anecdotes of rats conveying eggs 

 in a similar manner, that sensational naturalists are 

 fond of recording. 



