M THE CANADIAN NATURALIST. 
I once partook of the hind-quarters of this animal roasted, 
which I thought more dehcious than any meat I had ever 
tasted. The tail is a particular delicacy ; it is almost 
wholly composed of fat. Beaver skins are usually sold 
by weight. 
C. — The Musk-rat (Arvicola Zibethicus) is much like 
the beaver ; is it not ? 
F. — So much that Linnaeus, in one of his editions of 
Systema Naturae, placed it in the same genus. Its skin 
has a very pleasant smell of musk, which it retains long 
after death ; the fur is so much like that of the beaver, 
as scarcely to be distinguished from it. It may often be 
seen in our rivers in summer, in the banks of which it 
burrows. We perceive that the most valuable 
furs are the productions of the colder climates : and this 
is but one instance of the beneficence of God, in giving to 
every habitable country some compensation in itself for its 
peculiar inconveniences. While we find no spot on earth 
to be a paradise, a place of unmixed repose and pleasure, 
no land is altogether cheerless and desolate ; and this dis- 
tribution of gifts is made with a far more equal hand than 
we at first suppose. Some countries which are eminent 
for fertility, for luxuriance of vegetation, or beauty of 
scenery, are balanced by political restrictions, unhealthi- 
ness, or the languor and inactivity caused by heat. Others 
are cold and sterile, but have a pure and salubrious air, 
and are possessed by a free and industrious people. In 
some, where the inhabitants have a liberal government, 
and the comforts of a high state of civilization, the many 
find a difficulty in obtaining an honest livelihood, and al- 
most an impossibility of gaining independence : in others, 
the loss of home-comforts, and the privations of the forest, 
are rewarded by increasing wealth and a certain prospect 
of competence. 
