224 APPENDIX. 



than a friendly intercourse ; and to join their united labours in erect- 

 ing their separate habitations, and building their dams where re- 

 quired. It is difficult to say whether their interest on other occas- 

 ions was anyways reciprocal. The Indians of my party killed twelve 

 old beaver, and twenty-five young and half-grown ones out of the 

 house above mentioned ; and on examination found that several had 

 escaped their vigilance, and could not be taken but at the expence 

 of more trouble that would be sufficient to take double the number 

 in a less difficult situation.* 



Travellers who assert that the beaver have two doors to 

 their houses, one on the land-side, and the other next the water, 

 seem to be less acquainted with those animals than others who 

 assign them an elegant suite of apartments. Such a proceeding 

 would be quite contrary to their manner of life, and at the 

 same time would render their houses of no use, either to protect 

 them from their enemies, or guard them against the extreme 

 cold in Winter. 



The quiquehatches, or wolvereens, are great enemies to the bea- 

 ver ; and if there were a passage into their houses on the land-side, 

 would not leave one of them alive wherever they came. 



I cannot refrain from smiling, when I read the accounts of differ- 

 ent Authors who have written on the oeconomy of those animals, as 

 there seems to be a contest between them, who shall most exceed in 

 fiction. But the Compiler of the "Wonders of Nature and Art seems, 

 in my opinion, to have succeeded best in this respect ; as he has not 

 only collected all the fictions into which other writers on the sub- 

 ject have run, but has so greatly improved on them, that little re- 

 mains to be added to his account of the beaver, beside a vocabulary 

 of their language, a code of their laws, and a sketch of their religion, 

 to make it the most complete natural history of that animal which 

 can possibly be offered to the public. 



* The difficulty here alluded to, was the numberless vaults the beaver had in the sides of 

 the pond, and the immense thickness of the house in some parts, 



