The beavers go with young sixteen weeks ; they bear once a year four young, which ery and suck like young children ; for the mother rises on her hind paws and gives each two a breast as she has only two breasts between the fore legs ; these legs resemble somewhat those of the dog; the hindmost, like those of geese, lap in some measure over each other. On both sides of the privy parts lie two swellings enclosed in separate membranes. From the privy parts oozes an oleaginous humor, with which they smear all the accessible parts of the body in order to keep dry. Inwardly they resemble a cut up hog ; they live on leaves and bark ; are excessively attached to their young ; the wind-hairs which rise glittering above the back, fall off in the summer, and grow again by the fall ; they are short necked, have strong sinews and muscles ; move rapidly in the water and on land; attacked by menor dogs, they bite ; fiercely. The pure Castor, so highly prized by

physicians, consists of oblong follicles, resembling a wrinkled pear which are firmly attached to the os pubis of

Castor, what.

the female beaver; the Indians cut up the little balls of

the males with their tobacco as they afford no castor. The air of New Netherland abounds with all sorts of birds.

122 _ DESCRIPTION OF NEW NETHERLAND.

Besides falcon, sparrow-hawks, fish-hawks, and Bie N: Nethe other birds of prey, there are here numbers of