Their favourite food is the bark of the aspen, birch, and willow; they also eat the alder, but seldom touch any of the pine tribe unless from necessity; they are fond of the large roots of the _nuphar lutea_, and grow fat upon it, but it gives their flesh a strong rancid taste.

In the season of love their call resembles a groan, that of the male being the hoarsest, but the voice of the young is exactly like the cry of a child.

They are very playful, as the following anecdote will shew:--One day a gentleman, long resident in this country, espied five young beavers sporting in the water, leaping upon the trunk of a tree, pushing one another off, and playing a thousand interesting tricks.

He approached softly under cover of the bushes, and prepared to fire on the unsuspecting creatures, but a nearer approach discovered to him such a similitude betwixt their gestures and the infantile caresses of his own children, that he threw aside his gun.

This gentleman's feelings are to be envied, but few traders in fur would have acted so feelingly.