JAMES BAY TO RIVER ABBITIBBE 157 



to be, but they are wonderful evidence of the industry 

 and perseverance of the animals. Traces of them are 

 found in every part of the country I visited, and the 

 numbers of the animal must formerly have been enor- 

 mous. The "beaver meadows" alone can be counted 

 by thousands. These are generally tracts of from two 

 to twenty acres which have become damp, grassy swamps 

 through formerly having been covered with " beaver 

 ponds " floods occasioned by the dams. 



Beavers are eaten by Indians and trappers. The 

 flesh, like that of most other rodents, is rather dry and 

 devoid of fat. There is sometimes a strong flavour with 

 it, apparently derived from the castorum, a secretion 

 which is much sought after as a medicine, though, in my 

 opinion, it is a mere quack remedy. It is worth about 

 three shillings an ounce, and it takes several beavers 

 to furnish an ounce. The castor, or beaver pelt, is the 

 standard of value of the Hudson Company's bartering 

 transactions with the trappers, hence the name of the 

 wooden cubes used in lieu of money. It varies in value 

 in different districts, being sometimes reckoned at one 

 shilling, sometimes at two. The value of a beaver pelt, 

 in the European market, was formerly ten shillings : what 

 they are worth now I do not know. I could never discover 

 that beavers eat anything but bark, and principally birch 

 bark. Afterwards, in some parts of the United States, 

 I saw more of the beaver than I did in Canada. In some 

 secluded spots of the New England and Southern States 

 it was still abundant in the sixties and seventies ; but as 

 fast as these spots were discovered the animal was exter- 

 minated by the selfish greed of gain of the discoverers ; 

 and by the late seventies beavers seemed to be getting 

 very scarce in all the old States. The beaver is one of 

 the most easily captured of all animals. By netting the 

 streams above and below their dams that is, stretching 

 nets across on stakes the capture of every individual of 

 a colony is assured. Escape is impossible, as the animal 



