HABITS OF THE BEAVER. 261 
rumanti( stories have so fastened themselves 
on the mind of childhood, and have been so 
generally made a part of our education, that 
we now are almost led to regret that three- 
fourths of the old accounts of this extraordinaly 
animal are fabulous; and that, with the excep- 
tion of its very peculiar mode of constructing 
its domicile, the beaver is in point of intelli- 
gence and cunning greatly exceeded by the 
fox, and is but a few grades higher in the 
scale of sagacity than the common musk-rat. 
The following account was noted down by 
us as related by a trapper named Prevost, who 
-had been in the service of the American Fur 
Company for upwards of twenty years, in the 
region adjoining the spurs of the Rocky Moun- 
tains, and who was the “ Patroon” that con- 
veyed us down the Missouri river in the sum- 
mer and autumn of 1848. As it confirms the 
statements of Hearne, Richardson, and other 
close observers of the habits of the beaver, we 
trust that, although it may present little that is 
novel, it will, from its truth, be acceptable and 
interesting to our readers. Mr. Prevost states 
in substance as follows: 
Beavers prefer small, clear water rivers, and 
creeks, and likewise resort to large springs 
They, however, at times, frequent great rivers 
an takes, The trappers believe that they can 
