tinct. The European beaver
is generally supposed to lead a solitary life--burrowing in the banks of
rivers as otters do; but this supposition is evidently erroneous: or,
rather, we should say, its solitary habit is not its normal or original
condition, but has been produced by circumstances. It is probable that
if European beavers were left to themselves, in a situation remote from
the presence of man, they would build dams, and dwell together in
colonies, just as the American beavers do. In fact, such colonies have
actually existed in some parts of Europe and Asia; and no doubt exist at
the present hour. One has even been found on the small river Nutha, in
a lonely canton of the Magdeburg district, near the Elbe. Moreover, it
is well-known that the American beavers, when much hunted and persecuted
(as they are certain to be whenever the settlements approach their
territory) forsake their gregarious habit; and betake themselves to the
"solitary system;" just as their European cousins have done. Did this
constitute the only difference between the beavers of the Old and New
Worlds, we might regard them as one and the same; but there are other
and still more important points of distinction--reaching even to their
anatomical structure--which seem to prove them distinct species. The
probability is in favour of this view: since there is perhaps no
indigenous quadruped of the one continent exactly identical with its
synonymous species of the other; excepting the polar bears, and a few
other kinds--whose arctic range leads them, as it were, all round the
earth. The written natural history of the beaver is usually that of the
American species; not that this differs materially from his European
congener, but simply because it has been more extensively and accurately
observed. Its valuable fur has long rendered it an object of the chase;
and for fifty years it has been hunted _a l'outrance_, and, in fact,
exterminated from a wide domain of more than a million of square miles.
Formerly, its range extended from the Gulf of Mexico almost to the
shores of the Arctic Sea, and latitudinally from ocean to ocean. At
present, it is not found in the territory of the United States proper,
except in remote and solitary situations, among the mountains, or in
some tracts still unsettled. Even where found in these places, its mode
of life approximates more to that of the European species; that is, it
burrows instead of builds. The beav