ber of animals in the lodges. The larger lodges are, in the interior, about seven feet in diameter, and between two and three feet high, resembling a great oven. They are placed near the edge of the water, although actually built on or in the ground. In front, the beavers scratch away the mud to secure a depth of water that will enable them to sink their wood deep enough to prevent its being impacted in the ice when the dam is frozen over, and also to allow them always free egress from their lodges, so that they may go to the dam and repair it if necessary. The top of the lodge is formed by placing branches of trees matted with mud, grasses, moss, etc., together, until the whole fabric measures on the outside from twelve to twenty feet in diameter, and is six or eight feet high, the size depending on the number of inhabitants. The outward coating is entirely of mud or earth, and smoothed off as if plastered with a trowel.

As beavers, however, never work in the day-time, no person, we believe, has yet seen how they perform their task, or give this hard-finish to their houses. This species does not use its fore-feet in swimming, but for carrying burdens: this can be observed by watching the young ones, which suffer their fore-feet to drag by the side

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of the body, using only the hind-feet to propel themselves through the water. Before diving, the beaver gives a smart slap with its tail on the water, making a noise that may be heard a considerable distance, but in swimming, the tail is not seen to work, the animal being entirely submerged except the nose and part of the head; it swims fast and well, but with nothing like the speed of the otter.

The beavers cut a broad ditch all around their lodge, so deep that it cannot freeze to the bottom, and into this ditch they make the holes already spoken of, through which they go in and out and bring their food. The beds of these singular animals are separated slightly from each other, and are placed around the wall or circumference of the interior of the lodge; they are formed merely of a few grasses, or the tender bark of trees: the space in the centre of the lodge being left unoccupied. The beavers usually go to the dam every evening to see if repairs are needed.

They rarely travel by land, unless their dams have been carried away by the ice, and even then they take the beds of the rivers or streams for their roadway. In cutting down trees they are not always so fortunate as to have them fall into the water, or even towards it, as the trunks

of trees cut down by these animals are observed lying in various positions; although as most trees on the margin of a stream or river lean somewhat towards the water, or have their largest branches extended over it, many of those cut down by the beavers naturally fall in that direction.

It is a curious fact, says our trapper, that among the beavers there are some that are lazy and will not work at all, either to assist in building lodges or dams, or to cut down wood for their winter stock. The industrious ones beat these idle fellows, and drive them away; sometimes cutting off a part of their tail, and otherwise injuring them. These “Paresseux" are more easily caught in traps than the others, and the trapper rarely misses one of them. They only dig a hole from the water, running obliquely towards the surface of the ground twenty-five or thirty feet, from which they emerge when hungry to obtain food, returning to the same hole with the wood they procure, to eat the bark.

They never form dams, and are sometimes to the number of five or seven together; all are males. It is not at all improbable that these unfortunate fellows have, as is the case with the males of many species of animals, been engaged in fighting with others of their

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sex, and after having been conquered and driven away from the lodge, have become idlers from a kind of necessity. The working beavers, on the contrary, associate, males, females, and young together.

Beavers are caught, and found in good order at all seasons of the year in the Rocky Mountains; for, in those regions the atmosphere is never warm enough to injure the fur; in the lowlands, however, the trappers rarely begin to capture them before the first of September, and they relinquish the pursuit about the last of May. This is understood to be along the Missouri, and the (so called) Spanish country.

Cartwright found a beaver that weighed fortyfive pounds; and we were assured that they have been caught weighing sixty-one pounds before being cleaned. The only portions of their flesh that are considered fine eating, are the sides of the belly, the rump, the tail, and the liver. The tail, so much spoken of by travellers and by various authors, as being very delicious eating, we did not think equalled their descriptions. It has nearly the taste of beef marrow, but is rather oily, and cannot be partaken of unless in a very moderate quantity, except by one whose stomach is strong enough to digest the most greasy substances.

Beavers become very fat at the approach of

autumn; but during winter they fall off in flesh, so that they are generally quite poor by spring, when they feed upon the bark of roots, and the roots of various aquatic plants, some of which are at that season white, tender, and juicy. During winter, when the ice is thick and strong, the trappers hunt the beaver in the following manner: a hole is cut in the ice as near as possible to the aperture leading to the dwelling of the animal, the situation of which is first ascertained; a green stick is placed firmly in front of it, and a smaller stick on each side, about a foot from the stick of green wood; the bottom is then patted or beaten smooth and even, and a strong stake is set into the ground to hold the chain of the trap, which is placed within a few inches of the stick of green wood, well baited, and the beaver, attracted either by the fresh bark or the bait, is almost always caught. Although when captured in this manner, the animal struggles, diving and swimming about in its efforts to escape, it never cuts off a foot in order to obtain its liberty ; probably because it is drowned before it has had time to think of this method of saving itself from the hunter. When trapping under other circumstances, the trap is placed within five or six inches of the shore, and about the same distance below the surface of the water, secured and baited as usual. If caught,