furs which they may procure. The business of trapping requires great experience and caution, as the senses of the beaver are very keen, and enable him to detect the recent presence of the hunter by the slightest traces. The hands must be carefully washed before the trap is handled, and every precaution should be used to elude the vigilance of the animal.

The bait which is used to capture the beavers is prepared from the substance called castor, which is obtained from the animal itself, and valuable from its use in medicine.

It is a great subject of regret, that an animal so valuable and so prolific, should be hunted in a manner evidently tending to the extermination of the species.

In a few years, comparatively speaking, the beaver has disappeared in all the Atlantic and Western states, as far as the middle and upper parts of the Missouri.

Attempts have been made to domesticate the animal for the sake of the fur, by a gentleman to whom their habits and tastes were well known.

He took care to provide them with plenty of water, and to build similar dwellings to those he had seen in beaver colonies. He soon, however, gave up his attempt as hopeless, from the great attention they required, particularly during winter. He also found that the fur of all the younger ones bred in captivity was considerably inferior to the fur of those in a wild state, and after great labour and expense, he was obliged to relinquish his hope of making a fortune by beaver-breeding.

Where the wild stream, half choked with sedgy weeds
Winds its dark course through transatlantic meads,
Bound for St. Lawrence and his islets, there

Inhabit many a Musk-rat pair,

That rove the verdant shores and pluck the weed,
And, in fond concert, on the foliage feed;

Or gather fruits, or dive where, in its shell,
The pearly mussel and green mya dwell,
Sometimes their food.

ΑΝΟΝ.

THE RAT.-THE MOUSE.

Mus.

THE destructive habits of rats and mice are well known to us all, and many people are led only to think of these animals as enemies to their stores, both in the house, the yard, and the field. Truly, they are a destructive race, and the larger species, the rat, very bold and intrusive. Still we hope to prove, in the following sketch, that even the habits of rats and mice may be studied with both profit and interest.

There are no less than forty-six species of the rat scattered over the globe: six are natives of our own country. From this large number we will select a few whose habits may be more remarkable than those of their kind in general.

The Hamster rat is a native of Austria, Silesia, and many parts of Germany. It is noted for the beauty of its skin, for which it is hunted by the

natives as an article of commerce. They burrow habitations for themselves under ground; at the end of these passages, which run obliquely, the male sinks one perpendicular hole, the female several; at the end of these they form various vaults or apartments, either as storehouses for their food, or as lodgings for themselves and their young; each young one has its different room; each kind of grain its separate vault. Their lodgings are carefully lined with soft straw and grass, and differ in depth, according to the age of the animal. The diameter of the habitation of a whole family, with all its communications, is from eight to ten feet. They are fond of a sandy soil abounding in liquorice plants, on the seeds of which they feed. But their chief maintenance is grain of all kinds, great quantities of which they both eat and hoard. The Hamster, unlike other European rats, is furnished with a pouch in each cheek, large enough to hold about two ounces of grain. These they fill, and then empty into their store-houses by pressing the fore feet against the cheek. Dr. Russel, who examined one of these animals, found