APPENDIX. 229 



In this kind of hunting, every man has the sole right to all the 

 beaver caught by him in the holes or vaults ; and as this is a con- 

 stant rule, each person takes care to mark such as he discovers, by 

 sticking up the branch of a tree, or some other distinguishing post, 

 by which he may know them. All that are caught in the house 

 also are the property of the person who finds it. 



The same regulations are observed, and the same process used in 

 taking beaver that are found in lakes and other standing waters, ex- 

 cept it be that of staking the lake across, which would be both un- 

 necessary and impossible. Taking beaver houses in these situations 

 is generally attended with less trouble and more success than in the 

 former. 



The beaver is an animal which cannot keep under water long 

 at a time ; so that when their houses are broken open, and all their 

 places of retreat discovered, they have but one choice left, as it may 

 be called, either to be taken in their houses or their vaults : in gen- 

 eral they prefer the latter ; for where there is one beaver caught in 

 the house, many thousands are taken in their vaults in the banks. 

 Sometimes they are caught in nets, and in the Summer very fre- 

 quently in traps. In winter they are very fat and delicious ; but 

 the trouble of rearing their young, the thinness of their hair, and 

 their constantly roving from place to place, with the trouble they 

 have in providing against the approach of Winter, generally keep 

 them very poor during the summer season, at which time their flesh 

 is but indifferent eating, and their skins of so little value, that the 

 Indians generally singe them, even to the amount of many thousands 

 in one Summer. They have from two to five young, at a time. 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 difierent seasons of the year in which they are killed, and the 

 different uses to which their skins are applied which is the sole 

 reason that they vary so much in value. 



Joseph l,efranc, or Mr. Dobbs for him, says, that a good hunter 



