■!' 



186 FOREST LIFE IN ACAD IE. 



results of many comparisons show considerable difference 

 of arrangement of bones of the skull, a slight difference 

 as regards size and colour, and an important one as 

 regards both the form of the castoreum glands, and the 

 composition of the castoreum itself. Professor Owen, 

 Bach, and others agreeing on a separation of species.'* 

 Hence, instead of being termed Castor Fil)er (Var. Ami'ri- 

 canus), the American Beaver now, (and but recently), 

 is designated as Castor Canadensis, so termed rather than 

 C. Americanus, from the prior nomenclature of Kuhl. 



THE MUSK EAT (Fiber Zibethicus of Cuvier) is so 

 like a miniature beaver, both in conformation and habit, 

 that Linna3us was induced to class it amongst the Castors. 

 Like that of the latter animal its tail is flattened, though 

 vertically and to a much less extent, and is proportionally 

 longer. It is oar-shaped, whilst the form of the beaver's 

 tail has been aptly compared to the tongue of a manmial. 

 J')oth animals have the same long and lustrous brown-red 

 hair, with a thick undercoat of soft, downy fur, which, in 

 the musk rat, is of a blueish gray or ashes colour, in the 

 beaver ferruginous. The little sedge-built water hut of 

 the rat is similarly constructed to the beaver's dome 

 of barked sticks and brushwood, and both have burrows 

 in the banks of the river side as summer resorts. 



The range of the musk rat throughout North America 

 is co-extensive with the distribution of the beaver, and it 



* Dr. Brandt, who has written a most elaborate exposition on the differ- 

 ences of the beavers of the Old and New Worlds, states the eastoreuni-bag 

 of the American to l)e more elonjfated and thinner skinned than that of the 

 European ; and that in the secretion of the latter species there is a much 

 larger proportion of etherial oil, castorine, and castoreum-resinoid. — Vide 

 liaird's Alammals of Pacific Route. 



