344 



BEAVER. 



of all the phalanges of the bones, so that they can 

 come close together when the animal walks on land, 

 and spread wide of each other when it swims in water. 

 They are all united up to the claws by strong but 

 soft and flexible membrane, so that the feet form very 

 effective paddles, and they can be spread to their 

 full extent for the stroke, and closed while they are 

 recovering, which answers the same purpose as 

 "feathering" an oar, only it answers that purpose 

 much better. The nails upon the toes of these feet 

 are thick and strong ; and the second one is a sort 

 of double, by having a supplemental part in the form 

 of a sharp ridge on the under side, the use of which 

 is not very well known ; though it m;ty answer some 

 purpose in scraping or otherwise dividing substances. 

 The fore feet are not so strong as the hind ones ; 

 the joints of them are articulated more in the com- 

 mon manner of those of walking animals. The toes 

 on them are completely divided, and admit of so 

 much motion in their phalanges that they act some- 

 thing like thumbless hands, in which the point of 

 resistance to all the five toes is the wrist ; but hands 

 or paws of this description are best adapted for acting 

 against each other, or in concert with the mouth, as is 

 very much the habit with the beaver either when 

 moving substances on land when it is not walking, 

 or for moving substances through the water. 



In the use of its feet in walking the beaver com- 

 bines two distinct habits. On the fore feet it is 

 digitigrade, or walks on the toes only; and on the 

 hind feet it is plantigrade, or walks on the entire 

 length of the sole. This, again, gives the fore feet 

 more apparent stability than the hind ones in walking, 

 but it gives the whole animal a wriggling gait, and it 

 is in consequence rather a slow animal upon land. 



The tail of the beaver is the most peculiar part of 

 its structure. It is very large, nearly half as long as 

 the body of the animal, oval in shape, and flattened 

 on the upper and under sides. It is also, with the 

 exception of a small portion at its base (which is very 

 thick and strong), covered not with fur, like the rest 

 of the animal, but with a sort of horny scales, which 

 are produced by a thick and dark coloured skin. The 

 singular structure of this organ, and the remarkable 

 difference between its covering and that of the rest of 

 the body, has furnished a theme of much exaggeration 

 with those who have imagined the habits of the beaver 

 from the structure of the dead animal, and that 

 apparently with marvellously little either of anatomical 

 or of mechanical knowledge to guide them to any 

 thing like rational, or even possible conclusions. It 

 has been described as a mattock for digging pits, a 

 ram for driving stakes, a trowel for smoothing plaster, 

 and many other unbeaver-like operations ; atid as the 

 arrangement of the scales is not very unlike the 

 toothing of a file, it is somewhat astonishing that they 

 did not add the function of that instrument also in 

 smoothing and polishing the ornamental wood-work 

 of its dwelling! But the plain fact is, that there is not 

 one word of truth in any of these statements ; and no 

 one who had ever seen a living beaver, or examined 

 a dead one, with even a very moderate degree of the 

 requisite knowledge, would have been guilty of any- 

 thing so totally inconsistent both with the habits of 

 the animal and the structure of the organ. The tail 

 of the beaver is not even very efficiently a swimming 

 tail, but rather a rudder for the directing of the 

 animal's aquatic course. It has very little vertical 

 motion, being capable of just rising above the straight 



line, having remarkably little flexure in that way in 

 its length, and generally being partially in contact 

 with the ground when the animal walks. Its lateral 

 motion is also by no means great ; and from that, as 

 well as from its shape, it cannot be very effective in 

 impelling the animal through the water, though the 

 resistance of the scales may prevent a recoil from the 

 stroke of the swimming feet ; and the steadiness of the 

 tail its very inaptitude for the purposes to which 

 authors have applied it, fits it the better for answering 

 this purpose. There is also another use of the tail, 

 and this, too, depends in no small degree upon its 

 stiffness : it is sometimes used as a means of support. 

 The loose articulation of the knee joints, and the 

 tendency which these give the feet to separate, render 

 them alone a very unstable base when the animal 

 stands up, as it often has occasion to do in the procur- 

 ing of its food and materials, and also in the construct- 

 ing of its dams and dwellings. In these operations it 

 very often requires to have both mouth and fore paws 

 at perfect command, without much reference to the 

 balancing of its body ; and as the stiff tail converts it 

 for the time into a sort of tripod, it is in that way 

 very serviceable. We may therefore thus briefly sum 

 up the functions of the working organs in the beaver : 

 the fore teeth are cutting pincers, or double chisels, 

 so that they act against each other, and their action 

 is so powerful, that they will cut a moderately thick 

 twig as clean across as if it were done with a knife. 

 The grinders are adapted for bruising bark ; the 

 fore paws are the most efficient working instruments, 

 and also in some degree hands ; the hind feet are 

 most effective as swimming paddles ; and the tail is a 

 rudder in the water, and occasionally a supporting 

 prop, when the position of the animal requires one. 

 From this general description of the structure, the 

 functions of the parts may in a great measure be 

 inferred. 



Beavers are found in most of the northern latitudes 

 of both continents, in places which are adapted to 

 their habits, that is, in places which are remote from 

 the dwellings of man, and abound in wood and water. 

 They were not unknown in the British islands; for 

 though we cannot implicitly credit all the accounts of 

 them in the living state, and certainly not those which 

 mention their existence as recently as the fifteenth 

 century, yet we cannot disbelieve all the older 

 accounts, supported as these are by the unequivocal 

 proof of the bones of the animals found embedded 

 in the soil. Such remains are not very numerous, or 

 generally distributed ; but they have been found in 

 Berkshire in marl under peat. 



This carries us back to a very remote period, and 

 one in which the state of the country must have been 

 very different from what it is at present. We are 

 not aware of any situation in which a deposit of marl 

 can form other than in stagnant water, and then either 

 by calcareous oozings out of the earth, or by the 

 deposit of the shells of fresh water mollusca, carried 

 on through a long period of time; for when peat forms 

 upon a bottom which is not covered with water, the 

 substratum under it is not marl, but sand, gravel, or 

 clay. If we look at the description of places which 

 beavers now inhabit, we shall be enabled to form some 

 idea of what must have been the state of our own 

 country during the era of the beaver forests of 

 deciduous trees, for the beaver is not so fond of the 

 bark of pines, with numerous streams, pools, and 

 lakes; long winters, with heavy falls of snow, and 



