It is generally allowed that the beaver, far from having a superiority over other animals, seems to be inferior to many of them, in his merely individual qualities; and this fact I am enabled to confirm, by having had a young beaver, which was sent me from Canada, in 1758, alive in my possession for more than a twelvemonth. This animal is mild, peaceable, and familiar; it is rather inclined to be gloomy and melancholy; it has no violent or vehement passions, its movements are slow, it makes few efforts, unless to gain its liberty, which it frequently attempts by gnawing the gate of its prison, but without violence or precipitation. In other respects it seems to be perfectly indifferent, forming no attachments,[Q] and is as little inclined to offend as to please. He is inferior to the dog in the relative qualities which might make him approach to man; he appears formed neither to serve, command, or even to associate with any species but his own. His talents are repressed by solitude, and it is by society with his own kind they are brought into action. When alone he has little industry, few tricks, and not sufficient distrust to avoid the most obvious snares. Far from attacking any other animal, he has scarcely art to defend himself; always preferring flight to combat, he only resists when driven to an extremity, and then bites very hard with his teeth. [Q] M. Klein, however, says that he kept a beaver for several years, which followed and would go in quest of him, as dogs search for their masters. If then we consider this animal, in a state of nature, or rather in his dispersed and solitary state, we shall find that his internal qualities are not superior to other animals; he has not the genius of a dog, the sense of an elephant, nor the cunning of a fox; and he is rather remarkable for external singularities than for any apparent superiority of internal qualities. The beaver is the only animal who has a flat, oval tail, covered with scales, which serves as a rudder to direct his course in the water; the only one that has his hind-feet webbed, and the toes of his fore-feet separate, which he uses to convey food to his mouth; the only one which resembles a land animal in the fore parts, and approaches the nature of an aquatic one in the hinder, in short he forms the same shade between quadrupeds and fishes, as the bat forms between quadrupeds and birds. But these singularities would be rather defects than perfections, if the beaver did not derive from this conformation peculiar advantages which render him superior to all other animals.