28 THE CABINET OF NATURAL HISTORY, 
AUTHENTIC HISTORY.—Continued. 
is but indifferent eating, and their skins of so little value, 
that the Indians generally singe them, even to the amount 
of many thousandsin one summer. They have from two 
to five young, at atime. Mr. Dobbs, in his account of 
Hudson’s Bay, enumerates no less than eight different 
kinds of beaver; but it must be understood that they are 
all of one kind and species; his distinctions arise wholly 
from the different seasons of the year in which they are 
killed, and the different uses to which their skins are ap- 
plied, which is the sole reason that they vary so much in 
value. 
‘¢ Joseph Lefranc, or Mr. Dobbs for him, says, that a 
good hunter can kill six hundred beaver in one season, and 
can only carry one hundred to market. If that was 
really the case in Lefrane’s time, the canoes must have 
been much smaller than they are at present; for it is 
well known that the generality of the canoes which have 
visited the Company’s Factories for the last forty or fifty 
years, are capable of carrying three hundred beaver-skins 
with great ease, exclusive of the Indian’s luggage, pro- 
visions, &c. 
«eIf ever a particular Indian killed six hundred beaver 
in one winter, (which is rather to be doubted,) it is more 
than probable that many in his company did not kill 
twenty, and perhaps some none at all; so that by distri- 
buting them among those who had bad success, and others 
who had no abilities for that kind of hunting. there would 
be no necessity of leaving them to rot, or for singing them 
in the fire, as related by that author. During my resi- 
dence among the Indians I have known some individuals 
kill more beaver, and other heavy furs, in the course of 
a winter, than their wives could manage; but the overplus 
was never wantonly destroyed, but always given to their 
relations, or to those who had been less successful; so that 
the whole of the great hunter’s labours were always brought 
to the factory. It is indeed too frequently a custom among 
the southern Indians to singe many otters, as well as 
beaver; but this is seldom done, except in summer, when 
their skins are of so little value as to be scarcely worth the 
duty; on which account it has been always thought im- 
politic to encourage the natives to kill such valuable ani- 
mals at a time when their skins are not in season. 
‘¢ The white beaver, mentioned by Lefranc, are so rare, 
that instead of being ‘blown upon by the Company’s 
Factors,’ as he asserts, I rather doubt whether one-tenth of 
them ever saw one during the time of their residence in 
this country. In the course of twenty years experience 
in the countries about Hudson’s Bay, though I tra- 
yelled six hundred miles to the west of the sea-coast, 
FICTITIOUS HISTORY—Continued. 
customary rights of war, expel the conquered from their 
home, take possession of it themselves, appoint a provi- 
sional garrison for the occupation, and eventually estab- 
lish in it a colony of young Beavers. In this connexion, 
another circumstance relating to these truly wonderful 
creatures will appear not less astonishing. 
‘©The female Beaver whelps usually in the month of 
April, and produces as many as four young ones. She 
sustains, and carefully instructs them for a year, that is, 
till the family are on the eve of a new increase; and then 
these young Beavers, compelled thus to make room for 
others, build a new home by the side of the paternal man- 
sion, if they be not very numerous; but if there should be 
too many to admit of this, they are obliged to go, with 
others, to a new spot, forming a new tribe anda new estab- 
lishment. If, then, about this season the enemy should 
happen to be driven from his quarters, the conquerors 
install in them their own young ones of the current year, 
provided they be duly qualified for emancipation; or, in 
other words, capable of managing for themselves. 
«¢ The Indians have related to me asa positive fact, ano- 
ther circumstance respecting the conduct of these ani- 
mals; but it is so extraordinary, that I leave you to credit 
it or not, as you may think proper. 
‘¢ They allege, and some will even assert themselves to 
have been eye-witnesses of such a fact, that the two chiefs 
of hostile tribes sometimes terminate the quarrel by asingle 
combat, in presence of the two opposing armies, instances 
of which have occurred in various nations; or by a con- 
flict of three with three, like the Horatii and Curatii of 
antiquity. 
‘¢ Beavers practise the usage of matrimony, and death 
alone separates the parties. They inflict heavy punish- 
ments on their females for infidelity, and sometimes even 
death itself. 
“In cases of sickness, they mutually and anxiously 
take care of each other; and the sick express their pain by 
plaintive sounds and tones like the human race. 
‘¢The Indians hunt the Beaver in the same way in 
which I formerly described them to you as hunting the 
musk-rat: indeed the latter animal may be considered asa 
Beaver of a secondary order. It is of the same shape, only 
smaller, and resembles it in many of its qualities, but its 
fur is very inferior in beauty and fineness. It may be 
added, that in winter the Indians make holes in the ice 
which covers the ponds surrounding the habitation of the 
Beavers, and, carefully watching for the moment when 
they lift up their heads to take breath, instantly shoot 
them. 
