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what might have been expected from their numbers. Bur- 

 rows of thirty or forty paces in length on a level with the 

 river, having one opening beneath the surface and another 

 on land ; huts eight or ten feet high, formed of branches 

 and trunks of trees laid irregularly and covered with earth ; 

 and a dyke of the same materials, so well wrought that it 

 raised the water more than a foot, were the results of the 

 persevering and ingenious labours of the little band. M. de 

 Meyerinck, indeed, who seems to have had his ideas raised 

 by the marvellous accounts of the architectural habits of 

 the American species, asserts that his colony differed from 

 them in many particulars ; but, upon reading his memoir, 

 and comparing it with the unvarnished account of those 

 who have most truly related the habits of the American 

 beavers, we think that these Europeans, considering their 

 numbers and the materials within their reach, will be found 

 not a whit behind their Transatlantic brethren. 



In truth, the American beaver near the settlements is 

 sad and solitary ; his works have been swept away, his 

 association broken up, and he burrows like the European. 

 Such beavers are called terriers. Pennant indeed men- 

 tions them as a variety which wants either the sagacity 

 or the industry of others ; but he is much nearer the truth 

 when he says, in the same paragraph, ' beavers which 

 escape the destruction of a community are supposed often to 

 become terriers.' We have read somewhere (in Henry's 

 Travels, we believe) that these solitaries are also called 

 ' old bachelors.' 



If an additional proof of the sagacity of the European 

 beaver be required, we call the attention of our readers 

 to the following anecdote related by Geoffroy St. Hilaire 

 in the twelfth vol. of the Memoires du Museum d~His- 

 t'lire Naturelle. One of these beavers from the Rhone 

 was confined in the Paris menagerie. Fresh branches were 

 regularly put into his cage, together with his food, con- 

 sisting of legumes, fruits, &c., to amuse him during the 

 night and minister to his gnawing propensity. He had 

 only litter to shield him from the frost, and the door 

 of his cage closed badly. One bitter winter night it snowed 

 and the snow had collected in one corner. These were 

 all his materials, and the poor beaver disposed of them 

 to secure himself from the nipping air. The branches he 

 interwove between the bars of his cage, precisely as a basket- 

 maker would have done. In the intervals he placed his 

 litter, his carrots, his apples, his all, fashioning each with 

 his teeth so as to fit them to the spaces to be filled. To 

 stop the interstices he covered the whole with snow, which 

 froze in the night, and in the morning it was found that he 

 had thus built a wall which occupied two-thirds of the 

 doorway. 



Upon the whole evidence, we are of opinion that the 

 American and European beaver are only varieties of the 

 same species. 



That the beaver was formerly an inhabitant of the British 

 islands there is no doubt. Giraldus Cambrensis gives a 

 short account of their manners in Wales; but, even in his 

 time (he travelled there in 1188), they were only found on 

 the river Teify. 'Two or three waters in that principality,' 

 says Pennant, 'still bear the name of Llyn yr qfangc, or 

 the beaver lake. * * I have seen two of their sup- 



posed haunts ; one in the stream that runs through Nant 

 Francon, the other in the river Conwy, a few miles above 

 LUuirwit ; and both places, in all probability, had formerly 

 been crossed by beaver dams. But we imagine they must 

 have been very scarce even in earlier times. By the laws 

 of Hvwel Ma, the price of a beaver's skin, Croen Llostlydan 

 (broad-tailed animal), was fixed at a hundred and twenty 

 pence, a great sum in those days.' 



FOSSIL BKAVKKS. 



Castor trogontherium. Fischer has established this spe- 

 cies from a single skull found in the beds near the sea of 

 Azof. It is said to present the most striking analogy to 

 the cranium of the European beaver, from which it does 

 not differ except in its increased dimensions. 



/''Mit7 beaver of the Upper Val d'Arno. Lyell, upon 

 the authority of Mr. Pentland, mentions a fossil beaver from 

 the Upper Val d'Arno, as being among the mammifers from 

 that locality, in the museums at Paris. We have no means 

 of judging whether this differs from Fischer's species. 



BKCCAFI'CO (Zoology), the Italian name for Beccafigo, 

 or Fig-eater; Bec-figue of the French; Ficedula of the 

 1 ,:>tins ; and %v*a\is of the Greeks. This name, as Charles 



Bonaparte, Prince of Musignano, observes, in his Specchio 

 Compa.ra.two, is applied to different birds of the genus 

 Sylvia (Sylvan Warblers), whenever they are fat, and in a 

 good state for the table. These are generally fruit-eaters 

 in the season ; but the true beccafico, with its ' carne 

 squisita,' is, according to the Prince, the Sylvia hortensis 

 of Bechstein. 



The Beccafigo, or Fig-eater, of Willughby ; Ficedula 

 septima Aldrovandi, Pettichaps Eboracensibus, Beccafigo 

 Italis. of Ray ; appears to be the Lesser Pettychaps, Sylvia 

 hippolais of Latham ; Motacilla hippolais of Linnaeus. 

 The bird described by Willughby was shot in Yorkshire, 

 and, on dissection, grape-stones and other seeds were found 

 in its stomach. 



[Sylvia hortensis.] 



The Greater Pettychaps seems to have been first de- 

 scribed as a British species by Latham, who received it 

 from Sir Ashton Lever. The bird was obtained in Lanca- 

 shire. It has since become better known, and its arrival 

 with the other warblers in April and May, has been regu- 

 larly noticed. Montagu, who observes that he traced it 

 through the greater part of England, fixes the Tyne as its 

 northern boundary ; but he is corrected by Selby, who says, 

 I have often seen it on the north of the river Tweed." 



All who have heard the bird agree in their praise of its 

 song, which is little inferior to that of the nightingale. 

 Montagu states that it frequently sings after sunset. 

 ' Some of the notes," says that ornithologist, " are sweetly 

 and softly drawn ; others quick, lively, loud, and piercing, 

 reaching the distant ear with pleasing harmony, some- 

 thing like the whistle of the blackbird, but in a more 

 hurried cadence." Selby corroborates this, observing that 

 its song, although inferior in extent of scale, almost equals 

 that of the nightingale in sweetness. It is seldom seen ; 

 for, like the rest of the tribe, it haunts the shadiest coverts, 

 and usually sings from the midst of some close thicket. 

 Lewin says that it makes its nest, for the most part with 

 fibres and wool, sometimes with the addition of green moss, 

 often in the neighbourhood of gardens, which it frequents, 

 with the White-throat and Black-cap, for the sake of cur- 

 rants and other fruits. Montagu, who has recorded this 

 habit, states also that it inhabits thick hedges, where it 

 makes a nest near the ground, composed of goose grass 

 (Galium Aparine, Linn.) and other fibrous plants, flimsily 

 put together, like that of the common White-throat, with 

 the addition sometimes of a little green moss externally. 

 Selby gives much the same description. It lays four, some- 

 times five eggs, about the size of a hedge-sparrow's, or 

 hedge-warbler's, of a dirty white, blotched with light brown 

 (Selby says wood-brown), the blotches being most numer- 

 ous at the larger end. Its alarm-call, according to Selby, 

 is very similar to that of the white-throat. Early in Sep- 

 tember it leaves us, and C. Bonaparte notes it as common 

 near Rome in the autumn. 



The following description of the Greater Pettychaps, 

 whose length Montagu makes six inches, and its weight 

 about five drachms, is by Selby. 



" The whole of the upper parts oil-green, with a shade of 

 ash-grey. On each side of the lower part of the neck is a 

 patch of ash-grey. Throat greyish- white. Breast and 

 flanks yellowish-grey, inclining to wood-brown. Belly and 



