NORTHERN OCEAN 249 



Besides this unerring method of ascertaining the real 1771. 

 number of young which any animal has at a time, there is ^'^^^ 

 another rule to go by, with respect to the beaver, which 

 experience has proved to the Indians never to vary or deceive 

 them, that is by dissection ; for on examining the womb of a 

 beaver, even at a time when not with young, there is always 

 found a hardish round knob for every young she had at the last 

 litter. This is a circumstance I have been particularly careful to 

 examine, and can affirm it to be true, from real experience. 



Most of the accounts, nay I may say all the accounts now 

 extant, respecting the beaver, are taken from the authority of 

 the French who have resided in Canada ; but those accounts 

 differ so much from the real state and oeconomy of all the 

 beaver to the North of that place, as to leave great room to 

 suspect the truth of them altogether. In the first place, the 

 assertion that they have two doors to their houses, one on the 

 land-side, and the other next the water, is, as I have before 

 observed, quite contrary to fact and common sense, as it would 

 render their houses of no use to them, either as places of 

 shelter from the inclemency of the extreme cold in Winter, or 

 as a retreat from their common enemy the quiquehatch. The 

 only thing [243] that could have made M. Du Pratz, and other 

 French writers, conjecture that such a thing did exist, must 

 have been from having seen some old beaver houses which had 

 been taken by the Indians ; for they are always obliged to 

 make a hole in one side of the house before they can drive 

 them out ; and it is more than probable that in so mild a 

 climate as Canada, the Indians do generally make those holes 

 on the land-side,* which without doubt gave rise to the 

 suggestion. 



* The Northern Indians think that the sagacity of the beaver directs them 

 to make that part of their house which fronts the North much thicker than any 

 other part, with a view of defending themselves from the cold winds which 

 generally blow from that quarter during the Winter ; and for this reason the 

 Northern Indians generally break open that side of the beaver-houses which 

 exactly front the South. 



