Length of head and body . . . . 40 0 head alone . . 3 „ tail, scaly part . . . .I1 6 Distance from tip of nose to anterior part of eye 2 10 Distance from the posterior part of the orbit to anterior part of the ear . . . . 2 5He also gives the following account of the flesh, which, as much has been said of its delicacy as food, is interesting :—" The flesh of the beaver is much prized by the Indians and Canadian Voyageurs, especi ally when it is roasted in the skin, after the hair has been singed off In some districts it requires all the influence of the fur trader to restrain the hunters from sacrificing a considerable quantity of heaver fur every year to secure the enjoyment of this luxury; and Indians of note have generally one or two feasts in the season, wherein a roasted beaver is the prime dish. It resembles pork in its flavour, but the lean is dark-coloured, the fat oily, and it requires a strong stomach to sustain a full meal of it. The tail, which is considered a great luxury, consists of a gristly kind of fat, as rich but not so nauseating as the fat of the body." Pennant says that the geographical range of tho American Beaver commences in latitude 60° or about the River of Seals, in Hudson's Bay, and terminates in latitude 30° in Louisiana ; but Say places their limit at the confluence of the Ohio and Mississippi, about seven degrees farther to the northward of Pennant's southern boundary. Richer:leen observes that their most northern point is probably on the banks of the :Mackenzie (the largest American river that falls into the l'olar Sea, and the best wooded, owing to the q\rantity of alluvial soil by which it is bordered), as high as 674° or 68' N. lat. ; and that they extend cast and west from one side of the continent to the other, wit's the exception of the barren districts. lie further states that they are pretty numerous to the northward of Fort Franklin, and that, from the swampy and impracticable nature of the country, they are not likely to be soon eradicated there.
The following varieties of the American Beaver have been noticed : Var. a. C. Nigro!, the Black Beaver.
Var. S. C. P. curio, the Spotted Beaver. They have a large white spot on their breasts.
Var. y. C. F. tan, the White Beaver. This variety is an albino.
The Little Beaver is the Caeca. Zibethimm of Linn/nue, Fiber 7.ihethivua of Cuvier, Ondedra of Lacepbde, the 31unk-Rat of Canada, and Musquash of the Crec Indians. Pitaeroastr.3 F. Cutler has pointed out some alight differences in the skulls of the European and American beavers which he had examined for the purpose of showing that they are distinct. Baron Cuvier, in the last edition of hie 'Regne Animal,' expresses his uncertainty, notwith standing scrupulous comparison, whether the beavers which live in burrows along the banks of the IthOne, the Danube, the Weser, and other rivers, are especially different from those of America, or whether their vicinity to man is the cause that hinders them front building. He does not appear to have been aware of the colony described by M. do Meyerinek in the ' Transactions of the Berlin Natural History Society' for 1929, as having been settled for more than a century ou the small river Nuthe, a short distance above its confluence with the Elbe in a lonely canton of the Magdeburg district This little asso ciation, it appears, amounted in 1522 to 15 or 20 Individuals only ; but they were co-operative and industrious beyond what might have been expected from their numbers. Burrows of thirty or forty paces
in length on a level with the river, having one opening beneath the surface and another on land ; huts eight or ten feet high, formed of branches and trunks of trees laid irregularly and covered with earth; and a dyke of the same materials, so well wrought that it raised the water more than a foot, were the results of the persevering and ingenious labours of the little baud.
The American Beaver near the settlements at the present day is sad and solitary like the European Beaver ; his works have been swept away, his associations broken up, and lie burrows in the mains mariner. Such beavers are called Terriers. Pennant indeed mentions them as a variety which wants either the sagacity or the industry of others ; but he is much nearer the truth when he says, in the same paragraph, "Beavers which escape the destruction of a community are supposed often to become Terriers." They are also called Old Bachelors, The following anecdote, related by Geoffrey St. Hilaire in the 12th volume of the Memoires du Museum Natureile,' shows that the European Beaver has the same sagacity as its trans atlantic brethren. One of those beavers from the Rhone was confined in the Paris menagerie. Fresh branches were regularly put into his cage, together with his food, consisting of legumes, fruits, kr,, to amuse him during the night, and minister to him gnawing propensity. He had only litter to shield him from the frost, and the door of his cage closed badly. One bitter winter-night it snowed, and the snow had collected in one corner. These were all his materials, and the poor beaver (Ravened of them to secure himself from the nipping air. The branches ho interwove between the bars of his cage, precisely as a basket-maker would have done. In the intervals lie placed his litter, his carrots, his apples, his all, fashioning each with his teeth so as to fit them to the spaces to be filled. To stop the interstices he covered the whole with snow, which froze in the night, and in the morning it was found that he had thus built a wall which occupied two-thirds of the doorway.
That the Beaver was formerly an inhabitant of the British Islands there is no doubt. Giraldus Cambrensin gives a short account of their manners in Wales ; but, even in his time (he travelled there in 118S), they were only found on the river Teify. " Two or three waters in that principality," ease: Pennant, "still bear the name of Llyn yr Mange, or the Beaver Lake. • • • I have seen two of their supposed haunts; one in the stream that runs through dant Francon, the other in the river Convey, a few miles above Llanrwet ; and both places, in all probability, had formerly been crossed by beaver-dams. But we imagine they must have been very scarce even in earlier times. By the laws of Howelda the price of a beaver's skin was fixed at 120 pence—a great sum in those days." The Beaver also appears to have existed in Scotland. Boethins enumerates the Beavers, fibri,' aneang the animals which abounded in and about Loch Ness, and whose furs were in request for expor. tation towards the end of the 15th century. Dr. Walker, in his Mammalia Scotica,' states, on the authority of Giraldus, that Beavers formerly existed in Scotland. Tradition refers the name and aline of the town of Beverley in Yorkshire to the fact of Beavers having abounded in the neighbouring river Hull. (Owen, ' British Fossil Mammals.) fossil Ilearcra.