NORTHERN OCEAN 241 



but has so greatly improved on them, that little remains to 1771. 

 be added to his account of the beaver, beside a vocabulary of 

 their language, a code of their laws, and a sketch of their 

 religion, to make it the most complete natural history of that 

 animal which can possibly be offered to the public. 



There cannot be a greater imposition, or indeed a grosser 

 insult, on common understanding, than the wish [232] to 

 make us believe the stories of some of the works ascribed to 

 the beaver ; and though it is not to be supposed that the 

 compiler of a general work can be intimately acquainted with 

 every subject of which it may be necessary to treat, yet a very 

 moderate share of understanding is surely sufficient to guard 

 him against giving credit to such marvellous tales, however 

 smoothly they may be told, or however boldly they may be 

 asserted, by the romancing traveller. 



To deny that the beaver is possessed of a very considerable 

 degree of sagacity, would be as absurd in me, as it is in those 

 Authors who think they cannot allow them too much. I 

 shall willingly grant them their full share ; but it is impossible 

 for any one to conceive how, or by what means, a beaver, 

 whose full height when standing erect does not exceed two 

 feet and a half, or three feet at most, and whose fore-paws are 

 not much larger than a half-crown piece, can " drive stakes as 

 thick as a man's leg into the ground three or four feet deep." 

 Their "wattling those stakes with twigs," is equally absurd; 

 and their " plaistering the inside of their houses with a 

 composition of mud and straw," and " swimming with mud 

 and stones on their tails," are still more incredible. The form 

 and size of the animal, notwithstanding all its sagacity, will not 

 admit of its performing such feats ; and it would be as impos- 

 sible for a beaver to use its tail as a trowel, except on the sur- 

 face of the ground on which it walks, as it [233] would have 

 been for Sir James Thornhill to have painted the dome of St. 

 Paul's cathedral without the assistance of scaffolding. The 

 joints of their tail will not admit of their turning it over their 



