BEAVER, castor fiber , amphibious quadruped, measuring three or four feet in length and twelve to fifteen inches wide at the middle of the chest, and weighing ordinarily between forty and sixty pounds. Animals of this species are ordinarily very black; in the northernmost regions of America there are also some white ones. The majority of those from Canada are brown: their color becoming lighter as the country becomes more temperate; for the beavers are a tawny color; and they even become the color of straw among the Illinois and the Shawnee. The beaver described in the Mémoires de l’Académie royale des Sciences , vol. III part I was caught in Canada, near the Saint Lawrence River : its length was around three and a half feet from the tip of the snout to the end of its tail; and was nearly a foot at its widest ; it weighed more than thirty pounds. It had fur over all its body, with the exception of the tail, and this fur was of two sorts mixed together; one was an inch and a half in length; thick like hair, very shiny, brown in color, tending a little toward gray ; this gives the main color to the beaver ; its substance was firm and solid, and no cavity was seen with a microscope: however, M. Sarrasin, the King’s physician in Canada, says that a line is observed down the middle which is much less opaque than on the sides, and he conjectures that the hair is hollow. Mémoires de l’Académie des Sciences for 1704 . The other type of fur was only around an inch in length, was much more abundant than the first; it also appeared finer, and softer, and resembled silk; it is a very delicate and very tight coat that protects the beaver from the cold, and is used to make hats and cloth: only this coat remains on the skins that were used by the savages as clothing and blankets: it is the most valuable, because, being greased by sweat, it absorbs better. The beaver’s coat is protected from mud by the long hairs, when the animal is alive and working.

It was five and a half inches from the end of the snout to the back of the head, and five inches wide at the spot where the cheek bones bulged out; so that the head was almost square: the ears were round and very short, covered with fur on the outside, and almost without fur on the inside. The beaver ’s eyes are very small: the opening of the eyelids is only around four lines , the cornea is round, the iris a dark blue. The incisor teeth, of which there were two in each jaw, were sharp in the beaver that was described, like those of squirrels, porcupines, rats, etc.; the lower ones were more than an inch long, the upper ones were only around ten lines; they slipped within the others when the mouth of the animal was closed; the ones in the front were half-rounded, and were almost beveled from the inside to the outside; inside they were white in color, and on the outside a light red approaching yellow; they were three lines wide at the opening of the jaw, and more than two lines at the tip; there were sixteen molars, eight on each side, four on top and four on the bottom; they were directly opposite each other.

This beaver had five toes on each foot, those on the back feet were fused together by a membrane like that of a goose; the front feet had separate toes, and were like the human hand, except that there were covered with fur, and the nails were long and pointed; the front feet were six and a half inches long from the elbow to the tip of the longest finger, and three inches from the start of the hand to the end of the longest finger; the back feet were six inches from the tip of the heel to the longest toe, which was the second one; the nails were angled, and hollow inside like a writing quill; at the external part of each foot front and back, there was a small bone that bulged out, and which could be taken for a sixth toe if it had been separated from the foot.

The tail was around eleven inches long, two inches wide at the root, and three inches in the middle, the tip ends in an oval, the thickness was around two inches at the root, an inch in the middle, and five lines and half at the tip, its sides were round, and much thinner than in the middle, it was covered by a scaly skin joined together by a film, thick like parchment, a line and a half long, brownish gray and a bit of a slate color, and for the most part in an irregular hexagonal pattern. Two or three small hairs, around two lines in length, poked out from beneath the scales of the tail. Brushing the tail of the beaver , makes the scales fall off, but the stamped pattern remains. The meat of the tail was fairly fatty, and was very similar to that of large fish.

The genitals of the beaver are not apparent other than when there is an erection; only an opening is visible on the male and the female, which is situated on the beaver whose description we are following, between the tail and the pubic bone. Three and half inches below these bones, to recognize the sex organ, it is necessary to pinch the skin between the pubic bone and this opening; here the penis of the male is felt, which is as hard, thick, and long as a finger. The opening had an oval shape, around nine lines long, and seven wide; it dilated and resealed easily, not like that of a sphincter, but simply as a slit that closes by extending itself. The major excrement, urine, and even the penis, come out of this same opening; since the penis is enclosed in a tube lying on the rectum, which leads to the common opening, the same as the rectum: the vagina leads there as well in females.

On the internal lateral parts of the tips of the rectum, there were two small cavities, one on each side; two bulges were felt through the outside of the skin, which are pockets or bladders in which the castoreum is enclosed. After skinning the animal, four large pockets situated above the pubic bone were discovered at the place where these bulges were observed. The first two were placed in the middle, and higher than the two others; taken together, they had the shape of a heart. At their widest they were a little more than two inches; and the length from the top of each pocket to the common exterior opening to which they led, was also around two inches. There was in these pouches a tunic that appeared more flesh-like than glandular; it was reddish, and contained inside of it several folds similar to those of a sheep’s maw. These folds contained a strong foul-smelling grayish material, which was sticky: these same folds extended into the two pockets which communicated with each other toward the bottom by an opening of more than an inch, and were only separated at the bottom. At the bottom of these two first pockets, there were two others, one to the right and the other on the left. Their shape resembled a long slightly flattened pear; their length was two and a half inches, and the width ten lines. These two lower pouches were tightly joined to the upper ones by a common opening.

There is reason to believe that the material of castoreum passes from the first pouches to the second ones to be perfected: these second pouches were also of a different structure than the first ones; they were composed of glands that formed on the exterior round bulges, the largest of which did not exceed that of a medium sized bean. Having opened one of these second pouches at the bottom, an unpleasant liquid was found, yellow like honey, thick like melted fat, and flammable as turpentine: when squeezing the pouch none of this liquid refluxed back into the upper pouches, nor into the common excrement opening. After evacuating this liquid from the second pouch, a third lower pouch around fourteen lines long and six wide was seen; it was so attached to the second’s membrane that it could not be separated from it: it led to a point to the lateral part of the common opening; but its purpose was not found in the cavities that were observed in this opening. There were on the external surface of these third pouches, bulges similar to those of the second, and in the cavity a yellower and thinner juice than was found in the others ; it also had another odor and a paler color; at any rate all these pouches are very different from testicles. As such it is well proven that the testicles do not contain castoreum ; and as a consequence we should no longer be tempted to believe that the beaver tears off his testes when he is chased by hunters, in order to save himself by giving them the castoreum which is the reason for their hunt . This fable never had any foundation, since the testicles are hidden in the groin, a little higher up than the pouches of castoreum , on the external and lateral parts of the pubic bone.

M. Sarrasin has noted three membranes in the tissue of the first purses of the castoreum , which he calls upper purses . The first of these membranes is plain, but very firm. The second is thicker, spongy, and contains vessels. The third is particular to the castor , it is dry like old parchment, has the same thickness, and tears the same way. This membrane makes folds in which the second membrane is inserted: these folds are in such a great number, that the third membrane grows three times longer when it is expanded: it is uneven inside, and contains small threads, to which a gummy material sticks that is the castoreum , and it grows thicker little by little in the purses, and acquires in them the consistency of a heated resin between one’s fingers. It retains its sponginess more than a month after being separated from the animal; it smells bad during this time, and it becomes a grayish color on the outside and yellow color on the inside; then it loses its odor, hardens, and becomes crumbly like other resins, and is always combustible. When the membranes that envelope the lower purses was discovered, on each side there were found sometimes two, sometimes three purses together. Each one of these packets is two and a half inches long and around fourteen or fifteen lines in diameter; the purses are round at the bottom, and diminish gradually in size as they approach the common opening, which M. Sarrasin calls the cloaca . The largest of these purses takes up the length of the packet, and is only around eight to ten lines in diameter; the second normally does not have half the volume of the first; it is not always as large as the third one, which is however most often the smallest of all of them. The purses, both superior and inferior, do not communicate with one another, their paths lead to the cloaca .

We do not yet know, M. Sarrasin adds, to what end the beaver uses the liquids contained in the purses. It is not true, according to this writer, that they eat it to stimulate their appetite when it languishes, nor that hunters use it, as one has often heard, to attract beavers : but the oily liquid is rubbed on traps for the predatory animals that make war with the beavers , such as martens, foxes, bears, and above all wolverines, which often break the beavers’ lodges during the winter in order to surprise them therein. See Wolverine. The female savages grease their hair with this same oil, even though it has a foul odor.

Beavers live only in cold areas, and in the winter, on the wood from alder and plane, elm, ash trees, and on different types of poplar. During the summer they eat all kinds of herbs, fruits, roots, and above all the roots of different types of water lilies. It is believed that they live no more than fifteen or twenty years.

M. Sarrasin was not satisfied simply with describing the beaver ; he also reported several facts dealing with the history of this animal.

The beavers choose to build their homes in a place that is abundant in provisions, fed by a small river, and appropriate for making a water reservoir: they begin by constructing a type of causeway, high enough to hold back the water at the height of the first floor of the cabins that they must make. These causeways are ten to twelve feet thick at the foundation, and only two feet high; they are constructed with pieces of wood the size of an arm or thigh, and 2, 4, 5 or 6 feet long, which the beavers cut and carve very easily with their incisor teeth; they plant them very deep in the earth and very close to one another; they weave into them other smaller and more flexible wood, and they fill the voids with clay that they soften and mix with their feet, and that they transport on their tails, which also act as a type of trowel to put it in place and to apply it. They erect their dike as the river rises, which makes transporting materials easier; in the end, this work is solid enough to support people walking on it. The beavers take great care to maintain the causeways in good condition, and in order to do so apply clay in the smallest of openings they see.

After making the causeway, they build their cabin on the edge of the water, on several small islands, or on piles; they are round or oval, and two-thirds of the cabin is above the water: the walls are perpendicular, and normally are two feet thick. The cabin comes to a dome-shaped end on the outside, and an elliptical arch on the inside: it is constructed with several floors, which the beavers inhabit in succession as the water rises or falls: they do not fail to create a door that ice cannot block; they also have a separate opening from their door and from the place where they swim; this opening is where they excrete their waste. Sometimes they build the cabin entirely above the ground, and dig around it ditches five or six feet deep that lead to water: the materials are the same for the cabins as for the causeways. When the construction is finished, they complete their work by cutting with their teeth, which are as sharp as blades, all the pieces of wood that stick out from the walls, and they apply with their tails on the inside and outside of the cabin a type of mortar made from clay and dry herbs. A cabin in which there are eight or ten beavers , is eight to ten feet wide on the outside and ten to twelve feet long, assuming it is oval; inside it is four or five feet wide, and five or six feet long. When there are fifteen, twenty, or even thirty beavers who live in the same cabin, it is proportionally larger, or there are several next to each other. It has been said that up to four hundred beavers have been found living in different cabins connected one to another. The females enter into their cabins to have their babies, when the great floods have passed: but the males only leave for the season in the month of June or July, when the water is at its lowest; then they repair their cabins, or make new ones; and they move when they have consumed all the food at hand, when their numbers grow too great, or when they are overly threatened by hunters.

There are beavers who live in caverns built on elevated ground on the river bank; these are called land beavers . They begin their home by an opening, that goes more or less into the water, depending on the thickness of the ice, and they continue on for five or six feet in length, with a sufficient width to allow them to pass; then they make a water reservoir of three or four feet in all directions to swim in; they cut another tunnel in the earth, which rises into different levels, where they will go to stay dry as the water rises and falls. There are some tunnels that are over a thousand feet long. The land beavers cover the spots where they sleep with grass, and in winter they use wood shavings that function as mattresses.

All of these constructions are completed between the months of August and September, especially in cold areas; as the beavers prepare for winter; they cut wood into pieces, some of which are two or three feet long, and others are up to eight or ten feet. These pieces are dragged by one or several beavers , depending on their weight: they gather a certain quantity of wood that floats on water, and then they pile other pieces on the first ones, until there is enough for the beavers living together. For example, the supply for eight or ten, is twenty-five or thirty feet squared, with eight or ten feet of depth. These stacks are made so that they can take out the piece of wood of their choice, and they only eat waterlogged pieces.

Beavers are hunted from the beginning of November until the month of March or April, because during this time they have the best fur. They are killed from a blind, traps are set, and they are caught à la tranche .

The traps are similar to the ones used on rats. Several stakes about three or four feet long are planted at a steep angle into the earth, between them is a very heavy transversal stake, about a foot and a half tall: on top is placed a five- or six-foot-long poplar branch, which leads to a very small branch, placed such that when the beaver cuts it, the transversal stake falls and kills it. These animals do not fail to be caught by these traps, as they go from time to time into the woods to look for new food, despite having made their provisions, because they prefer fresh wood to driftwood.

To take beavers à la tranche means to use sharp instruments to make openings in the ice, when it is only around a foot thick; these animals come to the openings to breathe and they are knocked out with an axe. There are hunters who fill these holes with the stuffing of cattail ears, so as not to be seen by the beavers , and as such they take them from a foot behind. If there is a stream near the cabins, the ice is cut across; a very strong net is spread out, then the cabin is destroyed: the beavers come out, taking refuge in the stream where they meet the net.

The name of bièvre is given to the European beaver . One was dissected at Metz which had a much smaller tail, proportionally, than the Canadian beaver, whose description we have already provided. Its front front feet were not like hands: but it had fingers joined by a membrane like the otter. However Rondelet says expressly that the bièvre has front feet similar to those of a monkey. Mémoires de l’Académie Royale des Sciences, vol. III, part I, 1704. Rondelet, Histoire des poissons.  [1] See Quadruped. [2]

The beaver provides several medical remedies; when applied to parts of the body afflicted by gout, the skin of this animal protects them from cold.

The lard of the beaver is used successfully to soften calluses; it is very effective for the shakes and nervous maladies, paralysis, and the afflicted parts are greased.

Castoreum alleviates thick humors, fortifies the brain, provokes menstruation, and cleanses through perspiration; it is used for epilepsy, paralysis, apoplexy, and deafness.

Castoreum is burned, and hysterical women are made to inhale its foul odor in moments of fits. Tincture of castoreum is made as follows.

Take a half ounce of castoreum and a half pound of wine spirits; allow them to assimilate together for several days, then decant the solution, and keep it for use.

Sometimes two large doses of Tartar salt are added, in the hopes of separating the resinous tissue from the castoreum ; the dose of this tincture is from six to twelve drops in cases where castoreum is used in substance. Castoreum makes up several ingredients of the Pharmacopée de Paris [The Parisian Pharmacopia]. [3]

There is a large trade in beaver pelts; merchants, says M. Savary, distinguish between new beavers , parchment , [4] and coat beavers . [5] The new beavers are beaver pelts that were hunted during the winter before molting. These are the best and most appropriate for making beautiful furs.

Parchments , which are also called thin beavers , are the pelts of beavers , that come from the summer hunt, at which time the animal is molting, and has lost a part of its fur. Parchments may also be used in furs, although they are much inferior to the first type. Their greater use is for hats.

The coat beavers are the pelts of beavers that the savages have worn on their bodies, and which are impregnated with their sweat : the coat beaver is worth more than parchment ; however it is only used in the fabrication of hats.

Other than hats and furs which use the fur and the skins of beavers , attempts have been made to make cloth from them. This enterprise was worth being tried, and had as a goal to make wider use of the beaver fur; but ordinary cloth is preferable to beaver cloth. The experiment showed that the fabric produced with beaver fur, although mixed with Segovia wool, did not hold color well, and became dry and hard like felt.

1. The reference is to Guillaume Rondelet, L’histoire entière des poissons [The Complete History of Fish] (1558).

2. Daubenton’s contribution ends here.

3. Vandenesse’s contribution ends here. The author of the rest of the article is not identified, but presumably it is Daubenton again.

4. castors secs

5. castors gras