322 



THE ANIMALS OF ARCTIC AMERICA AND CANADA 



Flying-Squirrels. 



Of the three American representatives of the smaller flying- 

 squirrels perhaps the best known is Sciuropterus volans, which is 

 greyish brown above and yellowish white below, and, like the rest of its kind, 

 strictly nocturnal. These elegant little creatures glide so lightly, gracefully, and 

 swiftly through the air, that even persons not generally observant of the habits of 

 animals are moved to admiration. They live in the woods, and when moving from 

 place to place first ascend a tree, and then sail from the summit to the base of 

 a neighbouring tree, performing alternately these repeated climbs and leaps, and 

 always gliding upwards at the end of the flight so as to rest not on the ground 

 but on the stem. As mentioned in an earlier chapter, these flying-squirrels have 

 a European representative. 





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~wi~F^Z< . 



AMERICAN FLYING-SQUIRREL. 



Beaver. 



The American beaver (Castor canadensis) differs chiefly from its 

 European cousin by the form and relations of the bones of the fore- 

 part of the skull. In habits the two animals are very much alike, but the 

 American species generally chooses well-wooded districts watered by small streams, 

 where its dams cause the formation of large pools. In these pools the beavers 

 build their lodges, which attain a considerable size, and in former times lay so close 

 together that they occupied a wide extent of land, as at Montreal, where the greater 

 portion of the city is built over a so-called beaver-meadow. At the, time of the 

 discovery of America the beaver had a wider distribution north of the equator 

 than any other American animal except the puma. Although it did not occur on 

 the prairies and desert regions of the interior of the continent, it ranged in the 



