" More famous long agone, than for the salmon's leap, 

 For bevers Tivy was, in her strong banks that bred, 

 Which else no other brook of Britain nourished ; 

 Where nature, in the shape of this now perished beast, 

 His property did seem t' have wondrously express'd 

 Being body'd like a boat, with such a mighty tail 

 As served him for a bridge, a helm, or for a sail, 

 When kind did him command the architect to play, 

 That his strong castle built of branched twigs and clay ; 

 Which, set upon the deep, but yet not fixed there, 

 He easily could remove as it he pleas' d to steer 

 To this side or to that ; the workmanship so rare, 

 His stuff wherewith to build, first being to prepare, 

 A foraging he goes, to groves or bushes nigh, 

 And with his teeth cuts down his timber ; which laid by. 

 He turns him on his back, his belly laid abroad, 

 When, with what he hath got, the other do him load ; 

 Till lastly, by the weight, his burden he have found, 

 Then with his mighty tail his carriage having bound 

 As carters do with ropes, in his sharp teeth he grip'd 

 Some stronger stick ; from which the lesser branches stript. 

 He takes it in the midst ; at both ends the rest 

 Hard holding with their fangs, unto the labour prest, 

 Going backward tow'rds their home their loaded carriage led. 

 From whom, those first here born, were taught the useful sled. 

 Then builded he his fort for strong and several fights ; 

 His passages contriv'd with such unusual sleights. 

 That from the hunter oft he issu'd undiscern'd, . 

 As if men from this beast to fortify had learned, 

 Whose kind, in her decay'd, is to this isle unknown, 

 Thus Tivy boasts this beast peculiarly her own." 



— Drayton. 



