THE BEAVER. 359 



country has been explored up to the present time, this animal 

 has always been met with. From the hilly districts bordering 

 upon the river and Gulf of St. Lawrence, westward through 

 New Brunswick, and all the upland country, from thence 

 through all that section of the United States to the great 

 Valley of the Mississippi, those swampy pieces of ground, 

 universally called beaver-meadows, are more or less numerous ; 

 although through all this vast tract of country, a great por- 

 tion of which is now inhabited by mankind, very few beavers 

 are found at the present day. Most of them have undoubtedly 

 been destroyed by the hunters 5 but in some cases they have 

 sought for safety in the yet unreclaimed forest, constantly 

 receding at the approach of man. Mr. R. C. Taylor says, they 

 are nearly extinct in the Alleghany Mountains ; and Mr. E. H. 

 Greenhow says, that though they were once common in the 

 little rivers of Lower Canada, they, together with other wild 

 animals, have become scarce. There was a time when this 

 interesting creature inhabited Britain. It is supposed to have 

 become scarce at the end of the ninth, and extinct in the twelfth 

 century. Giraldus Cambrensis, in his Itinerarium Cambrics, says 

 that when he travelled through Wales in 1188, beavers were 

 only found in the river Teivi. 



The usual length of the beaver is about three feet. Its fur 

 is very fine and smooth, and of a glossy chesnut colour, varying 

 sometimes to black, and in a few solitary instances to white, 

 cream-coloured, and rarely pied. In each jaw and exactly 

 opposite are two strong, very large, broad, flat incisor teeth, of 

 a deep orange or nearly chesnut brown colour on the outside j 

 and there are four molars on each side in either jaw, and the 

 flattened surfaces of these teeth sufficiently indicate that they 

 are exclusively intended for the mastication of vegetal sub- 

 stances. The upper lip is divided vertically ; the eyes are 

 small j the ears short, and nearly hid in the fur j all the feet 

 have five toes, those of the fore-feet are smaller and shorter 

 than those of the hind, and divided almost to the base, while 

 the latter are united to their very tips by a strong fold of the 



