The down commences to grow in September, and developes itself progressively until the end of March, when it ceases to grow and detaches itself, unless artificially removed.
To collect the down, he waits the period when it begins to detach itself, and then the locks of down which separate from the skin with little force are taken off by hand; the down is removed from the animals every three or four days; in general it first begins to fall from the neck and shoulders, and in the following four or five days from the rest of the body; the collection is completed in the space of eight or ten days. Sometimes the entire down can be taken from the animal at one shearing, and almost in an unbroken fleece, when it begins to loosen. The shearing has the advantage of preserving more perfectly the parallelisms of the individual filaments, which much increase the facility of combing and preparing the down for manufacturing purposes.
CHAPTER V.
BEAVERS-WOOL.
Isidorus Hispalensis—Claudian—Beckmann—Beavers’-wool—Dispersion of Beavers through Europe—Fossil bones of Beavers.
The passage quoted from Isidore of Seville, in the last chapter, shows that the ancients made a cloth, the woof of which was of Beavers’-wool (de fibri lanâ), and which was therefore called Vestis Fibrina. By lana he must have meant the very fine wool, which, agreeably to the observation in the last paragraph, grows under the long hair of the beaver. Isidore in the same Book, observes, “Fibrinum lana est animalium, quæ fibros vocant: ipsos et castores existimant.”
The following Epigram of Claudian seems intended, as Beckmann (iv. p. 223.) supposes, to describe “a worn-out beaver dress, which had nothing more left of that valuable fur but the name.”
ON A BEAVER MANTLE.
The shadow of its ancient name remains:
But, if no nap of beaver it retains,