THE BEAVER. 



PLATE XIV. 



Class Mammalia. Order VI. Rodentia, Knawing Ani- 

 mals. Genus Castor. 



In all countries, as man is civilized and improved, the 

 lower ranks of animals are depressed and degraded. 

 Either reduced to servitude, or treated as rebels, all their 

 societies are dissolved, and all their united talents rendered 

 ineffectual. Their feeble arts quickly disappear ; and 

 nothing remains but their solitary instincts, or those foreign 

 habitudes which they receive from human education. 



The Beaver seems to be now the only remaining monu- 

 ment of that kind of intelligence in brutes, which, though 

 infinitely inferior, as to its principle, to that of man, sup- 

 poses, however, certain common projects, certain relative 

 ends in view, projects which, having for their basis society, 

 in like manner, suppose some particular method of under- 

 standing one another, and of acting in concert. 



It is allowed that the Beaver, far from having an abso- 

 lute superiority over the other animals, seems, on the con- 

 trary, to be inferior to some of them as to its qualities 

 merely as an individual ; and this fact is confirmed by 

 observing a young Beaver, which was sent to Paris from 

 Canada in the beginning of the year 1758. It is an ani- 

 mal tolerably mild, tranquil, and familiar, though rather, 

 it would seem, gloomy and melancholy. If we consider 

 this animal, therefore, in its dispersed and solitary state, 

 we shall find, that, as to internal qualities, it is not supe- 

 rior to other animals ; that it has not more ingenuity than 

 the dog, more sense than the elephant, or more cunning 

 than the fox. It is rather remarkable for the singularities 

 of its internal qualities. Of quadrupeds, the Beaver alone 

 has a flat oval tail, covered with scales, which serves as a 



