AMERICAN BEAVER. 349 



The tail is very broad and flat, tongue-shaped, and covered with angular 

 scales. The root of the tail is for an inch covered with fine fur. The 

 glandular sacs containing the castoreum, a musky unctuous substance, 

 are situated near the anus. 



Incisors, on their outer surface, orange ; moustaches, black ; eyes, light- 

 brown. The soft under down is light grayish-brown. The upper fur on 

 the back is of a shining chesuut colour ; on the under surface, and around 

 the mouth and throat, a shade lighter. Nails, brown ; webs between the 

 toes, and tail, grayish-brown. We have seen an occasional variet3\ 

 Some are black ; and we examined several skins that were nearly white. 



DIMENSIONS. 



Male, represented in the plate. — Rather a small 



spe( 



jimen. 





From nose to root of tail 





23 



inches. 



Tail 





10 



do. 



From heel to end of middle claw. 





5J 



do. 



Greatest breadth of tail, .... 





3i 



do. 



Thickness of tail, 





7 

 8 



do. 



Weight, Hi lbs. 









The sagacity and instinct of the Beaver have from time immemorial 

 been the subject of admiration and w^onder. The early writers on both 

 continents have represented it as a rational, intelligent, and moral being, 

 requiring but the faculty of speech to raise it almost to an equality, in 

 some respects, with our o^\^l species. There is in the composition of 

 every man, whatever may be his pride in his philosophy, a proneness in 

 a greater or less degree to superstition, or at least credulity. The ^vorld 

 is at best but slow to be enlightened, and the trammels thrown around 

 us by the tales of the nursery are not easily shaken off. Such travellers 

 into the northern parts of Sweden, Russia, Norway, and Lapland, as 

 Olaus Magnus, Jean Marius, Rzaczynsky, Leems, &c., vi^hose extravagant 

 and imaginary notions ■were recorded by the credulous Gesner, who wrote 

 marvellous accounts of the habits of the Beavers in Northern Europe, 

 seem to have worked on the imaginations and confused the intellects of 

 the early explorers of our Northern regions — La Hontan, Charlevoix, 

 Theodat, Ellis, Beltrami, and Cartwright. These last, excited the enthu- 

 siasm of Buffon, whose romantic stories have so fastened themselves on 



