FIG. 94. Beaver
FIG. 95. Raccoon
The beaver uses its fore-feet like hands, with as much facility as a squirrel; the toes of the hind-feet being connected by a strong membrane, supply the place of fins, and expand like those of a goose, which the beaver somewhat resembles in its walk. He swims much better than he runs; and as his fore-legs are much shorter than his hind ones, he always moves along with his head very low and his back arched. His senses are very acute, and that of smelling so delicate, that he will not permit any dirt or filth to remain near him. When kept in confinement too long, and he is under the necessity of voiding his excrements, he drops them close to the threshold of the door, and as soon as that is opened pushes them out. This habit of cleanliness is natural to them, and our young beaver never failed to purify his apartment in this manner. At the age of one year he gave a sign of ardour for a female, which seems to be a proof he had then nearly attained his full growth; therefore their duration of life cannot be very long, and it is probably wrong to extend it to fifteen or twenty years. The beaver I had was very small for his age; a circumstance that is not surprising, since he had been in perpetual confinement from his earliest days, and from being unacquainted with water until he was nine months old, he could be expected to grow and expand like those who, while they enjoy their liberty, range at pleasure in that element which seems to be almost as necessary to them as that of land.
SUPPLEMENT.
In confirmation of our former remarks that beavers might be easily tamed, M. Kalm, in his Voyages, says, that he had seen beavers so tame that they would go out to fish and bring the prey home to their masters; nay that they would even follow men and dogs, go with them into their boats, jump into the water, and soon come up again with fish. And M. Gmelin affirms that he saw a beaver in Siberia, which had been reared in the house, who would go to considerable distance, and sometimes returning with a female whom he would suffer to go away by herself after the season of love.