BEAYEKS. 
These industrious creatures have always attracted so 
much interest and attention that it is to he regretted 
that their numbers are so greatly diminishing, and at no 
distant period we fear that the species may become ex- 
tinct in the new world. Although abundant enough at 
one time, they are now nearly or entirely extinct in 
Europe ; their habits, mode of living, and constructing 
their dwellings expose them at once to the hunter, whose 
insatiable desire to obtain their valuable skins causes him 
to unnecessarily destroy a whole colony at once ; this, added 
to the increased population and advancement of civilization, 
is the cause of the gradual disappearance of these intelligent 
constructors of dams. It must be admitted that a colony 
of beavers capable of bringing down several trees, each of 
nearly 4 ft. in circumference, during a single night and 
causing them to fall across a stream, and thereby diverting 
the current of a river, might give a considerable amount 
of trouble and annoyance in a well-cultivated and much- 
inhabited country, especially if water-mills and other 
useful inventions set up lower down the said river were 
rendered useless, and perhaps the property built on the 
right bank of the stream might some day be found on the 
left ; in such a case the poor beavers would soon be called 
upon to account for their lawless though innocent pro- 
ceedings, and no doubt, without judge or jury, would be 
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