1771. December.
It frequently happens, that some of the large houses are found to have one or more partitions, if they deserve that appellation; but that is no more than a part of the main building, left by the sagacity of the beaver to support the roof. On such occasions it is common for those {230} different apartments, as some are pleased to call them, to have no communication with each other but by water; so that in fact they may be called double or treble houses, rather than different apartments of the same house. I have seen a large beaver-house built in a small island, that had near a dozen apartments under one roof: and, two or three of these only excepted, none of them had any communication with each other but by water. As there were beaver enough to inhabit each apartment, it is more than probable that each family knew its own, and always entered at their own door, without having any farther connection with their neighbours than a friendly intercourse; and to join their united labours in erecting their separate habitations, and building their dams where required. It is difficult to say whether their interest on other occasions was anyways reciprocal. The Indians of my party killed twelve old beaver, and twenty-five young and half-grown ones out of the house above mentioned; and on examination found that several had escaped their vigilance, and could not be taken but at the expence of more trouble than would be sufficient to take double the number in a less difficult situation.[AZ]
Travellers who assert that the beaver have two doors to their houses, one on the land-side, and the other next the {231} water, seem to be less acquainted with those animals than others who assign them an elegant suite of apartments. Such a proceeding would be quite contrary to their manner of life, and at the same time would render their houses of no use, either to protect them from their enemies, or guard them against the extreme cold in Winter.
The quiquehatches, or wolvereens, are great enemies to the beaver; and if there were a passage into their houses on the land-side, would not leave one of them alive wherever they came.
1771. December.
I cannot refrain from smiling, when I read the accounts of different Authors who have written on the œconomy of those animals, as there seems to be a contest between them, who shall most exceed in fiction. But the Compiler of the Wonders of Nature and Art seems, in my opinion, to have succeeded best in this respect; as he has not only collected all the fictions into which other writers on the subject have run, but has so greatly improved on them, that little remains to be added to his account of the beaver, beside a vocabulary of their language, a code of their laws, and a sketch of their religion, to make it the most complete natural history of that animal which can possibly be offered to the public.
There cannot be a greater imposition, or indeed a grosser insult, on common understanding, than the wish {232} to make us believe the stories of some of the works ascribed to the beaver; and though it is not to be supposed that the compiler of a general work can be intimately acquainted with every subject of which it may be necessary to treat, yet a very moderate share of understanding is surely sufficient to guard him against giving credit to such marvellous tales, however smoothly they may be told, or however boldly they may be asserted, by the romancing traveller.
1771. December.
To deny that the beaver is possessed of a very considerable degree of sagacity, would be as absurd in me, as it is in those Authors who think they cannot allow them too much. I shall willingly grant them their full share; but it is impossible for any one to conceive how, or by what means, a beaver, whose full height when standing erect does not exceed two feet and a half, or three feet at most, and whose fore-paws are not much larger than a half-crown piece, can "drive stakes as thick as a man's leg into the ground three or four feet deep." Their "wattling those stakes with twigs," is equally absurd; and their "plaistering the inside of their houses with a composition of mud and straw," and "swimming with mud and stones on their tails," are still more incredible. The form and size of the animal, notwithstanding all its sagacity, will not admit of its performing such feats; and it would be as impossible for a beaver to use its tail as a trowel, except on the surface of the ground on which it walks, as it {233} would have been for Sir James Thornhill to have painted the dome of St. Paul's cathedral without the assistance of scaffolding. The joints of their tail will not admit of their turning it over their backs on any occasion whatever, as it has a natural inclination to bend downwards; and it is not without some considerable exertion that they can keep it from trailing on the ground. This being the case, they cannot sit erect like a squirrel, which is their common posture: particularly when eating, or when they are cleaning themselves, as a cat or squirrel does, without having their tails bent forward between their legs; and which may not improperly be called their trencher.