352 TYPES OF ANIMAL LIFE 



200,000 skins were exported annually to Europe. The 

 European variety has become almost extinct, save where 

 it is protected by the Emperor of Austria; though 

 isolated pairs are met with in Germany and Russia. It 

 was once an inhabitant of Great Britain, as some Welsh 

 names of places would alone suffice to prove, were there 

 not also positive testimony of it, such as that of Giraldus 

 Cambrensis. 



The European beaver never makes dams like those for 

 which its American cousin is so renowned, yet we know, 

 from Albertus Magnus, that it did so in the thirteenth 

 century. The American kind was recently imported 

 into the Island of Bute by its owner (the Marquess of 

 Bute), and there they throve wonderfully, and formed 

 their dams in true American fashion. 



The amazing facility the beaver possesses for felling 

 trees is due to the power of its jaws and teeth. Of these 

 there are, as in the- aye-aye, two large cutting teeth 

 above and two below, separated by a toothless interspace 

 from the grinding teeth behind them. Each cutting 

 tooth is protected in front by a coating of very dense 

 enamel, so that at its summit it wears away less quickly in 

 front than behind, and thus a sharp, chisel-like cutting 

 edge is constantly preserved. 



Another well-known and renowned American rodent 

 is the prairie marmot, commonly called the " prairie dog." 

 It is a stoutly built little animal with a short tail, of 

 very social habits, feeding on buffalo-grass, and living in 

 large communities in burrows, so closely placed that it is 

 very dangerous work riding across the plains they 

 inhabit. Their habitations are peacefully shared by a 

 small owl, and less peacefully by rattle-snakes, which 

 latter doubtless frequent them in order to feed on their 

 young. 



