362 THE BEAVER. 



previous to the frost setting in. This winter store of branches 

 is placed near the entrance and on the outside of their houses, 

 and is sometimes so large as to rise above the surface of the 

 water, and to contain more than a cart load of provisions. 

 From this store they cut away portions as necessity requires ; 

 and after tearing off the bark [by means of their powerful 

 incisor teeth], they reject the wood, leaving it to float away 

 with the current. Willow, poplar, and birch are their favourite 

 kinds j and the latter, according to Cartwright, renders their 

 flesh ' the most delicious eating of any animal in the known 

 world.' The root of the water-lily also affords them an occa- 

 sional supply, and makes them very fat, but gives their flesh 

 a strong arid unpleasant flavour."* 



Phillips, in his Sylva Florifera (1823), says the swamp 

 magnolia (M. glauca) is generally called by the Americans the 

 beaver-tree, because the root is the favourite food of beavers, 

 and is therefore employed to catch them. 



Ever since the year 1638, when the British Government 

 issued a proclamation forbidding the use of any material except 

 beaver fur in the manufacture of hats, the North American 

 Indians have incessantly sought after this animal, vast num- 

 bers of which are annually killed. In 1743, the Hudson's 

 Bay Company alone sold 26,750 skins ; and 127,080 were 

 imported to Rochelle. In 1788, upwards of 170,000 were 

 exported from Canada; and in 1808, Quebec alone supplied 

 this country with 126,927, which, at the estimated average of 

 eighteen shillings and nine pence per skin, would produce no 

 less a sum that 118,994 sterling. So general was the 

 use of beaver fur in the hat manufacture, till of late years, 

 when its scarcity has rendered the gossamer silk and other 

 substitutes necessary, that the common name beaver and its 

 more classic generic name Castor have become vulgar synonymes 

 for the word hat. 



It may be here mentioned that what is termed nutria fur, 

 an article very extensively used by the British and French 

 * Zoological Gardens Delineated (1831), vol. i. p. 165. 



