COMMON BEAVER. 39 



separate. At ease in their cabins, they go not 

 out but upon agreeable or useful excursions, to 

 bring in supplies of fresh bark, which they prefer 

 to what is too dry or too much moistened with 

 water. The females are said to go pregnant for four 

 months : they brins: forth at the end of winter, 



/ 



and generally produce two or three young. 

 About this time they are left by the males, who 

 retire to the country to enjoy the pleasures and 

 the fruits of the spring. They return occasionally 

 to their cabins, but dwell there no more. The 

 mothers continue in the cabins, and are occupied 

 in nursing, protecting, and rearing their young, 

 which at the end of a few weeks are in a condi- 

 tion to follow their dams. The females, in their 

 turn, make their excursions, to recruit themselves 

 by the air, by eating fishes*, crabs, and fresh 

 bark, and in this manner pass the summer upon 

 the waters and in the woods. They assemble not 

 again till autumn, unless their banks or cabins be 

 overturned by inundations ; for when accidents 

 of this kind happen, they suddenly collect their 

 forces, in order to repair the breaches which have 

 been made/' 



Besides the associated Beavers there are others 

 that live solitary, and instead of constructing ca- 

 bins, or vaulted and plastered receptacles, con- 



* This is a particular which seems to want confirmation, and 

 it is now generally believed that the Beaver does not feed on fish, 

 but merely on vegetable substances ; yet Kalm assures us that he 

 has seen tame Beavers which have been made use of for catching 

 fish. 



