258 



MAMMALIA. 



the Indians cut up the Httle balls of the males with their tobacco as 

 they afford no castor." * 



In the year 1732 the immortal Linnanis was sent, by the Royal 

 Academy of Upsal, on a tour throuoh Lapland. In his personal 

 journal he says : " I set out alone from the city of Upsal on Friday 

 May 12, 1732, at eleven o'clock, being at that tinie within half a 

 day of twenty-five years of age." Sixteen days later, when at a 

 place called Genow, the young naturalist had the opportunity, 

 apparently for the first time, of examining a recently killed Beaver. 

 Of it he said, " I inquired concerning the food of this animal, and 

 was told it was the bark of trees, the birch, fir, and mountain ash, 

 but more especial!)- the aspen, and the castor becomes larger in 

 proportion as the Beaver can get more of the aspen bark. This 

 confirmed the truth of what Assessor Rothman formerly asserted, 

 that castor is secreted from the intermediate bark of the poplar, 

 which has the same scent, though not quite so strong : hence it is 

 to be presumed that a decoction of this bark, if the dose were suf- 

 ficiently large, would have the same medicinal effects. I wonder 

 no naturalist has classed this animal with the Mouse tribe | which 

 term was then applied to all Rodents |, as its broad depressed form 

 at first sight suggested to me that it was of that family." f Thus, 

 only a century and a half ago, appeared the germ of th(^ idea that 

 recognized in the structure of the Beaver its affinities with the 

 members of the order Glires, to which order it was assigned by 

 Linnaius in his great work, the Systcma Naturce. 



Thomas Pennant said: "The skins are a prodigious article of 

 trade ; being the foundation of the hat manufactory. In 1763 were 

 sold, in a single sale of the Htidsons Bay Company, 54,670 skins." % 



* Documentary History of New York, Vol. IV, pp. 120-121. 

 f Lachesis Lapponica, Vol. I, 1811, pp. 8S-89. 

 \ Synopsis of Quadrupeds, 1771, p. 258. 



