THE BEAVER. 
499 
derdonck declares that 80,000 beavers were killed annually in this 
part of the continent during his residence here, but this seems 
quite incredible. Dr. De Kay has found, in a letter of the Dutch 
West India Company, the records of the export of 14,891 skins 
in the year 1635. In ten years, the amount they exported was 
80,103, the same number which the old chronicler declares were 
killed in one year. The flesh was considered the greatest of dain- 
ties by the Indians, the tail especially ; and in this opinion others 
agreed with them, for it is said that whenever a beaver, by rare 
good luck, was caught in Germany, the tail was always reserved 
for the table of the Emperor. The Russians, it seems, were great 
admirers of beaver fur, and the New Netherlanders shipped their 
skins to that country, where they were used as trimmings, and 
then returned to the Dutch, after the hair had worn away by use, 
to be made into hats, for Avhich they were better adapted in this 
condition than at first. 
Otters are now very rare indeed ; they were once very common 
on our streams. Their habits are much like those of the beaver, 
but they are decidedly larger, measuring from three to five feet 
in leno-th. Their fur is valued next to the beaver for hats and 
o 
caps, and is in great request, selling at eight dollars a skin. These 
animals have one very strange habit : it is said that they actually 
slide down hill on the snow, merely for amusement ; they come 
down head foremost, and then, like so many boys, climb up for 
the pleasure of the slide down again. They will amuse them- 
selves for hours in this way. And even in summer, they pursue 
the same diversion, choosing a steep bank by the side of a stream, 
which gives them a dip as they come down. One would like to 
see them at their play. " The. Otter," would be a very good 
