MK. A. H. GREEN ON THE BEAVEE. 365 



trap. The proper depth to set a trap is 5 inches. The beaver is 

 then caught by his fore foot. Sometimes the teeth of a beaver 

 are found to have grown beyond their proper length. I once saw 

 one with the lower teeth 3| inches beyond the gums. He was 

 caught in a trap, and was miserably thin ; but, singularly enough, 

 he had about the finest fur I ever saw. He was an aged animal. 

 It is rare to see a beaver which has been trapped with its teeth, 

 whole, as they are often broken in trying to get out of the trap. 

 A full-grown beaver weighs about 34 lbs. I am not an anatomist ; 

 but still I do not think there is anything very peculiar about its 

 internal structure*, except that the heart weighs a mere nothing 

 — the cavities being so very large. An old beaver when shot 

 sinks, a kitten floats. A good skin will weigh 2| lbs. ; but it is 

 very rarely that one weighing that amount is caught in Van- 

 couver Island. The Hudson's Bay Company give only from 75 

 to 85 cents per lb. at Victoria for peltries, so that a trapper now- 

 a-days cannot get very fat at the work. There are at present very 

 few beavers on either Vancouver Island or the mainland, com- 

 pared with what there must have been some years ago ; but they 

 have been increasing for the last six years ; and no doubt by the 

 time beaver-skins come into fashion again there will be a plentiful 

 supply. 



Supplementary Notes by Mr. Brown. 

 The following I add as an Appendix to the foregoing observa- 

 tions of my friend Mr. Q-reen, whose opportunities for studying 

 the animal were much superior to my own during my travels iu 

 North-west America, and whose account is valuable as being the 

 plain unvarnished notes of a hunter — a narration of facts very 

 familiar to him, written with no reference to preconceived notions 

 or received theories. First, therefore, regarding the range of the 

 beaver. It is found all over British Columbia, Oregon, Wash- 

 ington Territory, and even south to California and north to the 

 limit of trees. It is not, however, found, as far as I can learn, 

 in the Queen Charlotte Islands, but is abundant in Vancouver 

 Island, though, curiously enough (in such a manner is history 

 written) Colonel Colquhoun Grant, in his ' Description of Van- 

 couver Island ' (Journal of the Eoyal Geographical Society, vol. 

 xxvii. p. 268), mentions that he has seen traces, and was not aware 



* Vide Cleland, Edin. New Phil. Journal, new series, vol. xiii. (1860) 

 pp. 14-20. 



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