I 
THE BEAVER. 159 
huts eight or ten feet in height, of branches and trunks 
of trees, laid without any regularity and covered over 
with soft earth ; and constructed of the same materials 
a dyke so perfect as to raise the level of the water more 
than a foot. All their habits indeed as here described 
coincide so exactly with those of the American Beavers 
that we should feel some surprise at M. de Meyerinck's 
assertion that they differed from them in several parti- 
culars, and especially in their manner of building, were 
it not manifest that his ideas of the transatlantic race 
were gleaned from the relations of those travellers who 
have indulged their imaginations, instead of relying 
upon their observations, in all that they have written 
concerning these singular animals. 
The history of the Beaver teems in fact with the . 
most ridiculous exaggerations. Even the absurdities of 
the ancients have in this instance been exceeded by the 
credulity of the moderns. The former, indeed, knew 
the animal only in a state comparatively solitary, and 
could not therefore attribute to him those ideas of social 
policy and that settled system of government for which 
the latter have given him unbounded credit. This 
delusion, which was perhaps natural enough to those 
who took but a superficial view of the faculties of this 
almost mechanical animal, has now, however, passed 
away ; and the intelligence of the Beaver is recognised 
as nothing more than a remarkable instinct exerted 
upon one particular object, and upon that alone. In 
all respects, except as regards the skill with which he 
constructs his winter habitation, and the kind of com- 
bination into which he enters with his fellows for 
carrying their common purpose into effect, his intelli- 
gence is of the most limited description. He has in 
fact no need of those artful contrivances to which many 
animals are compelled to have recourse. His food is 
