BEAVER. 



345 



probably continued drought in the summer, because 

 there is much less atmospheric action between the 

 sea and the land in a wood-clad and humid country 

 than in one which is cleared of its forests and drained. 

 At present, though there are some beavers in the 

 west of Europe, as far to the south as Germany, they 

 may be said to be few and scattered in that part of the 

 world, and not very numerous in the north of Asia. 

 Their head-quarters are in North America, though 

 even there they are fading fast before the invading 

 foot of human settlement, and the unceasing labours of 

 the hunters. There are still, however, immense tracts 

 of that country remarkably well adapted to their 

 habits, and there they are proportionally abundant. 



Some slight differences have been found (or 

 fancied) between the skulls of the few beavers of the 

 two continents which have been examined, but cer- 

 tainly not greater than those which may be observed 

 between the skulls of human beings of the same 

 nation, or even of the same family. It has also been 

 said that their habits in the two continents differ from 

 each other ; but the difference is not greater than 

 between the beavers in different parts of the same 

 continent. Thus there is no reason to conclude that 

 there are even two varieties of beavers, far less that 

 there are two species. 



From what has been said of the structure of these 

 animals, it will be seen that they have a double 

 element, being adapted both for the land and the 

 water, and perhaps for both in nearly an equal 

 degree ; for though the hind feet are aquatic rather 

 than terrestrial in their structure, the structure of the 

 fore ones is wholly terrestrial, and the animal is in no 

 respect a water-feeder. It spends, indeed, a consider- 

 able portion of its time on the margin of the waters, 

 and some part of it in that fluid, but the water 

 directly produces nothing which can be considered as 

 beaver's food. The beaver eats no animal substance ; 

 and plants which are strictly aquatic, and grow in the 

 water without being rooted in the soil, have no matter 

 in them adapted for its support. Sometimes, indeed, 

 beavers eat the roots of water lilies, and other plants 

 which form bulbs or other roots, containing, during 

 the season of their repose, a considerable quantity of 

 albuminous matter ; but these are not, strictly speak- 

 ing, water plants ; they are marsh plants, and though 

 water is necessary to their growth, soil is equally so, 

 as we never find them on the washed sands or clean 

 gravel of running streams. 



But as the beaver has thus a double element, it has 

 a double habit, answering to different seasons of the 

 year ; and though it never inhabits so far landward as 

 that the water is out of its reach as a means of escape 

 from land enemies, and might be said never abso- 

 lutely to inhabit the water at all, it is almost exclu- 

 sively a land animal (except for safety) in the summer, 

 and much more towards the water in the winter. This 

 double habit is carried on with some difference, at 

 least in the winter portion of it, according to the loca- 

 lity ; but still it shows us the use of the beaver in wild 

 nature, and that brings us back again to the peculiar 

 state of countries in which beavers inhabit them. 

 Deciduous shrubs and trees, which of course grow 

 most abundantly and luxuriantly in humid, but not, 

 generally speaking, in marshy places, are the charac- 

 teristic vegetation there, and would in time overcome 

 and destroy all else, and finish the scene with self- 

 destruction, if their exuberance were not by some 

 means or other restrained. 



To restrain this exuberance is the peculiar province 

 of the beaver, in like manner as it appears to be one 

 of the natural uses of the hare to restrain the over- 

 abundance of forest trees on dry grounds, by barking 

 the seedlings in the winter, so that they perish. 

 Accordingly, while those trees and bushes which the 

 beaver has more immediately in charge are in a state 

 of growth, the beaver ranges about, among them, 

 eating the young shoots, the young seedlings, and also 

 the berries, in their season. But when the trees 

 become leafless the animal instinctively lops the twigs, 

 even those of considerable size ; then cuts them in 

 lengths, so that it can remove them ; and carries them 

 to the water, where they remain in little floats, secured 

 in proper places against being swept away by the 

 floods, and removed thence to the winter dwelling of 

 the animal, as occasion requires. Sometimes, also, it 

 stores up twigs in the winter habitation ; and it does 

 so the more decidedly the deeper that the water on 

 the margin of which that habitation is situated is 

 liable to be frozen. 



In summer, beavers, as is the case with many ani- 

 mals which are social in winter, disperse themselves 

 through the groves and brakes on the banks, and lead 

 solitary lives, reposing for the night or the day, as it 

 happens (for they are equally fitted for work during 

 the one as the other), in the shelter of whatever bush 

 or hole close by the water may be most convenient to 

 them. During the time which they so inhabit they 

 are not very much molested by the hunters, at least 

 by those hunters who kill them solely or chiefly for 

 the sake of their skins ; because then, as is the case 

 ! with all animals of countries having hot summers 

 ' and severe winters, their fur is neither so abundant 

 nor so valuable as during the cold season. In the 

 early part of the summer the old fur is dead and 

 I loose, and the new is only partially grown ; whereas 

 1 against the time that the coldest winter weather comes 

 1 round, all the fur which is on the animal is alive, and 

 in the greatest abundance and ripeness. There are 

 other reasons in favour of the winter capture : in 

 summer there is an effort for each solitary individual, 

 whereas in winter those which associate may be 

 taken en masse by means of nets and other devices. 

 In summer, too, the flesh of these animals is not quite 

 so good as in winter, or at least as at the commence- 

 ment of the latter season : and hence the winter is 

 the grand time for the capture of them for food as 

 well as for clothing, or for materials of which articles 

 of clothing may be manufactured. 



During the summer season the habits of all beavers 

 are as nearly the same as the nature of the places in 

 which they reside will admit ; and the chief differ- 

 ences are more or less labour in the finding of their 

 food, in proportion as that food is less or more scat- 

 tered over the surface. With equal temperature, those 

 places which are the most humid, and on which the 

 water remains the longest, without stagnating, so as to 

 prevent the growth of shrubs and trees, are the best 

 adapted for the support of beavers during the sum- 

 mer. The decline of the surface of much of Europe 

 and Asia, in this respect, is one of the causes of the 

 diminished and diminishing number of beavers there ; 

 and the same may be said of those parts of America 

 in which they are few and scattered, and have the 

 same habits as in Europe. 



The winter habit varies more than the summer one. 

 It is not ascertained, and indeed not very probable, 

 that beavers hybernatc under any circumstances of 



