378 ON THE 



mation of some naturalists, the most intellectual 

 of the mammiferous Quadrupeds, and even al- 

 most contending with Man, in those inventive 

 qualities, which have ever been considered as 

 one of his most distinguished attributes. 



After the complete distribution of the several 

 members of their society, during the spring and 

 early summer months, into the recesses of the 

 Forest; to reassemble them in colonial order at 

 the commencement of Autumn, upon the banks of 

 some river, or lake, there to determine in what 

 part of the water they shall fix their winter abode ; 

 lo assign to a certain number of each sex, the 

 part they shall have to perform in the completion 

 of their object ; to build a dam across the stream 

 when a river is decided upon, by means of stakes 

 and earthy materials, so placed as to stop the 

 current of the water, in order that it shall always 

 retain are equal elevation in those parts where 

 their houses are to he erected ; to cut down trees 

 with their teeth, and convert them into stakes 

 which, by burrowing- holes with their fore feet 

 they shall afterwards fix upright in the water in 

 double rows to serve as pillars for their future 

 edifices ; to slip oflf and pare the branches of 

 those trees and interwove them between the up- 

 rights so as to form receptacles for the earth ,and 

 other materials brought thither by their mouths 

 and feet for the erection of those buildings; and 

 to press the materials down with their feet and 



