890 'd A S 
conftantiy under water. The infides of their houfes are 
neatly plaftered with mortar, fpread and beaten firmly 
with their tails, and each individual forms its bed of mofs, 
or of the tender twigs of box or fir. The females bring 
forth about the end of winter, and continue in the cabins, 
to nurfe and protect their young, for fome weeks, and 
then go abroad into the woods: the males leave the ca-_ 
bins as foon as the fpring commences,and,during fummer, 
they only make occafional vifits to their winter refidence. 
Should no accident happen to their embankment, or 
houfes, they continue dilperfed through the whole fum¬ 
mer, and affemble again in autumn, to repair any inconfi- 
derable breaches, and to lay in their winter (tores. If their 
dams or cabins have been defiroyed, they collect their 
whole force early, and'fet about the neceffary repairs, or 
new buildings, with the fame union, and appearance of in- 
■tel!c£f,.as at their firft coiidriiftion. 
In hunting thefe beavers, the favages fometimes fiioot 
them, always getting on the contrary fide of the wind, for 
they are very fhy, quick in hearing, and of a keen fcent. 
This is generally done when the beavers are at work, or 
on fliore feeding on poplar bark. If they hear any noife 
when at work, they immediately jump into the water, and 
continue emerged for fome time; and, when they rile, it 
is at adiilance from the place where they went in. They 
are fometimes taken with traps: thefe are nothing but 
poplar (ticks laid in a path near the water, which, when the 
beaver begins to feed upon, theycaufea large log of wood 
to fall upon their necks, which is put in motion by the 
moving of the (licks, and confequently requires an inge¬ 
nious contrivance. The favages generally prefer this way of 
taking them, becaufe it does not damage the lkins. In the 
winter time they break the ice in two places, at a diflance 
from the hut, the one behind the other; then they take 
away the broken ice with a kind of racket, the better to 
fee where to place their (lakes. They fallen their nets to 
•thefe, which have large me(hes, and are eighteen or twenty 
yards in length. When thefe are fixed, they proceed to 
demolifti the huts, and turn a dog loofe, which terrifying 
the beaveis, they immediately take to the water, and are 
foon entangled by the net. In the fummer leafon they fre¬ 
quently hunt them down with dogs. The ancients errone- 
ottfly fuppofed that the calloreum was lodged in the tefti- 
£les ; and hence fabled, that the animal, when hard preffed, 
would bite them off, and leave them to his purfuers, as if 
confcious of what they wanted to defiruy him for. See 
Juvenal, xii. 34. 
2. Calior fiber folitarius, or terrier beaver. Befides the 
affociated beavers, there are others which, even in the 
fame climates, live folitary in holes, like badgers, and are 
.called terrier beavers, from their digging in tire ground ; 
they are ealily diftinguifhed from the red by the dirtinels 
and ragged appearance of their coat, which is torn by rub- 
binon rlie earth of their holes. The folitary beavers are 
inch as have either been deprived of a fufficient number 
of companions to carry on the labours of an edablifhment, 
bv the definition of their village ; or they live in coun¬ 
tries where mankind fo much abound as to prevent the 
pollibility of their finding fufficient quiet for carrying on 
their operations. Some authors fay, that part of them have 
been banifhed from among the affociated beavers, on ac¬ 
count of crimes or Indolence. At any rate, it is certain, 
that the affociated beavers are only found amid valt foreds, 
while the folitary beavers, befides being found in the fame 
countries, are widely fpread over many places, where, at 
leaf! in modern days, no alfociations take place. The fo¬ 
litary beaver w<as well known to the ancients,in the neigh¬ 
bourhood of the Black Sea, and was called canis ponticus, 
but they had no knowledge of their affociations and won¬ 
derful labours. This, therefore, is not a different fpecies 
from the preceding. 
Beavers are found all over North America, Rufiia, and 
•Siberia: they are very rare in Poland, Germany, France, 
Italy, Greece, and Egypt; there are none now in Britain, 
but fome beavers’ heads have lately been dug out of peat- 
T O R. 
bogs in the north of Scotland. The (kins of thefe animals 
form a prodigious article of commerce, for the fake of the 
fine dourny fur, of which the fined hats are made, and fome 
other articles of manufacture. Above fifty-four thoufahd 
of them have been fold by the Hudfon’s Bay company at 
one fale, befides thofe that are imported from other parts 
of North America. Thofe of a black colour are pre¬ 
ferred, and fiich as are taken during winter, efpecially if 
they have been worn by the Indians, by which the long 
hairs fall off, leaving the fine downy fur perfectly free, 
and better fitted for every purpofe of manufacture. 
3. Cador huidobrius, or Chilefe beaver, with the tail 
conipreffed (idewife, broader in the middle, pointed, and 
hairy: the fore feet have the toes fkirted with membrane,- 
and the hind feet are webbed. It inhabits Chili, and fre¬ 
quents the deeped parts of the lakes and rivers, is a fierce 
animal, lives on fifh and crabs, and is capable of daying a 
long while under water ; it has no cadoreal glands, neither 
does it imitate the wonderful architecture of the common 
beaver. The body of this fpec es, from the tip of the nofe 
to the rump, is about three feet long; the head is of a 
fquared figure, with a blunt' fnout, final! eyes, and lliort 
rounded ears; the fur is compofed of two orders of nairs, 
like that of the common beaver, the undermod, or down, 
being much finer than that of the rabbit, and is held in 
great edimation by the furriers; the upper parts of the 
body are adi-coloured, and the lower parts whitidi : the 
female brings two or three young ones each litter. Per¬ 
haps this animal belongs rather to the tribe of otters; but 
we mud wait for farther information before it can be de- 
feribed with fufficient accuracy to afeertain its place in fyf- 
tem. The mufk-beaver, placed in this genus by many 
writers, is the beaver-rat, and dands at the head of the mu¬ 
rine tribe. See Mus. 
CAS'TOR,yi \_caJloreum, Lat.] The drug found in the 
inguinal glands of the beaver. It is of a foftidi, greyifh 
yellow, or light brown, fnbflance, which in a warm dry 
air grows by degrees hard and brittle, and of a darker ana 
browner colour. On cutting thefe glands or bags, when 
dry, and as brought into the (hops, they are found full of 
a brittle friable fubdance, of a brownifh red colour, in- 
terfperled with fine membranes and fibres, exquifitely in¬ 
terwoven. Neumann fays, that the bed comes from Pruf- 
fia; but mod, if not all other writers, fay from Rufiia. 
The Ruffian is in hard round bags : an inferior fort comes 
from Dantzic; it is fmaller and moifter. The word is 
from Canada ; it is in thin long bags. The Ruffian calior 
hath a drong, but not agreeable, fmell ; the other forts are 
weaker and more ungrateful. 
Cador is ranked among antifpafmodics, and certainly, 
on many occafions, a powerful one, and has been ufeful, 
almoh in every cafe requiring fuch remedies, when given 
in dofes of from 10 to 30 grains. In Oow nervous fevers 
it takes off the oppreffion of the prascordia, which is often 
a very troublefome fymptom. It is of a faponaceous na¬ 
ture, fo does not ad by its dimulusalone, but is refolvent 
and detergent: in fome cafes it is anodyne. Rondeletius 
feems to have been the fil'd who made the didiiffition be¬ 
tween thefe bags or glands of the heaver, and his tedicles, 
which latter they were generally (aid to be. The bed caf- 
tor is that which is.from a full-grown beaver, hath a fetid 
and difagreeable fmell, an acrid biting fade, a brownifh 
colour, anda friable texture. It is frequently adulterated 
with dried blood, gum ammoniaettm, galbanum, See. 
mixed with a-fittle of the powder of cador, and fome quan¬ 
tity of the axungia cadorei, the adepsorfat of the beaver. 
But to detedt the fraud, obferve that the genuine folli- 
cules arife both from one common fource ; that the mat¬ 
ter contained in them is of a firm confidence, and too bulky 
to be forced therein in their natural date; the fmell is not 
fo drong as the genuine ; it is -true that fometimes the 
difficulty to didinguifh die lalfe from the genuine is very 
great, but the fophidication is undoubted, when the mem¬ 
branes, pellicles, and fibres, appear intermixed with the 
cador. This drug does not keep well in powder. Redti- 
