LABRADOR JOURNAL 309 



will tiiid a great difference, but it must be leniem- 

 bered, that tliey wrote entirely from hearsay, and 

 I, from experience chietly. As so many noble- 

 men and gentlemen in England have expended 

 large sums on curiosities and pleasure, I greatly 

 wonder, that not one, out of so manv who have 

 parks well walled round (for no other fence will 

 do) with convenient ponds in them, have been 

 curious enough to establish a colony of beavers; 

 which might easily he done, by planting plenty 

 of birch, aspen, ash, willow, sallow, osier, alder 

 .and other such like trees round the ponds, accord- 

 ing to the nature of the soil, and j^rocuring a few 

 pairs of beavers to turn in. But care should be 

 taken to have pairs of the same families, lest they 

 should all turn hermits. 



Thursday, October 2, 178S. I sent Edwards this 

 morning with two other men to the l)eaver-house, 

 and thev returned in the eveninc; with a beaver 

 and a great beaver; another tra]) had ])een struck 



the fresh air, and to bathe. During the greatest part of the day, they sit 

 on end, with their head and anterior parts of the body elevated and their 

 posterior parts suni< in tlie water. . . . The continu.il habit of keeping 

 their tail and po-;terior |)arts in the water, appears to have clianKed the 

 nature of their flesh, 'i'iiat of their anterior parts, as far as the reins, 

 has the taste and consistence of the flesh of hind or air .iiiiinals, but that 

 of the fail and posteriors has the odour and all the otlifr (jualities of fish." 

 Huffon repeats only to reject as incredil)le the stories " that, after the 

 beavers have established a society, they reduce strangers and travellers 

 of their own sfjecies into slavery; that these they enijjloy to carry their 

 earth ami to drag their trees; that they treat in the same manner 

 the la/.y and old of their own society; that they turn them on their backs, 

 and make thern serve as vehicles for tin* carriage of their materials; that 

 these refjublicans never associate Imt in .in odii iniinln r, in onjci- to have 

 always a casting voice in their dejiber.itioiis; that each tribe has its chief; 

 that they have establi.shed .sentinels for the public safety," etc. 



