AN EPICUREAN DISH. 267 
sex, and after having been conquered and 
driven away from the lodge, have become 
idlers from a kind of necessity. The work. 
ing beavers, on the contrary, associate, males, 
females, and young together. 
Beavers are caught, and found in good order 
at all seasons of the’ year in the Rocky Moun- 
tains; for, in those regions the atmosphere is 
never warm enough to injure the fur; in the 
lowlands, however, the trappers rarely begin 
to capture them before the first of September, 
and they relinquish the pursuit about the last 
of May. This is understood to be along the. 
Missouri, and the (so called) Spanish country. 
Cartwright found a beaver that weighed forty- 
five pounds; and we were assured that they 
have been caught weighing sixty-one pounds 
before being cleaned. The only portions of 
their’ flesh that are considered fine eating, are 
the sides of the belly, the rump, the tail, and 
the liver. The tail, so much spoken of by trav- 
ellers and by various authors, as being very de- 
licious eating, we did not think equalled their 
escriptions. It has nearly the taste of beef 
narrow, but is rather oily, and cannot be par- 
taxen of unless in a very moderate quantity, 
except by one whose stomach is strong enough 
to digest the most greasy substances. 
Beavers become very fat at the approach of 
