The Beaver

The following is an Anglish translation of an Encyclopedia Britannica article on the Beaver.

The Writ

The Beaver, (knoosel Castor), is either of two stocks of twilived gnawdeer fund in Northamerick, Ewrope, and Asey. Beavers are the greatest of the gnawdeer in Northamerick and Ewrasey and the next greatest worldwide. Hir bodies span up to 31 inches long and weigh abute 35-66 punds (with the heaviest weighed at more than 85 punds). Hy live in streams, eas, marshes, ponds, and shorelines of great lakes and bild dams of bughs, stones, and mud, making ponds that often span many akers. Lifelorers often name beavers as “kindly craftsmen” for hir might to wend the land in which hy live.

Beavers have short shanks and a heavy body with a small, broad, and dull head. Ettinish chiselshaped foreteeth have a yellowred uter glase forthat iron has nimmen the stead of limeshaft, and this makes hem stronger than most gnawdeer foreteeth. When diving, folds of hide (trapdoors) close the nostrils and the short sinwelt ears, and the eyes are sheelded by a film that keeps water ute (winking film). The hairlined lips close behind the foreteeth, stopping water from the muthe and lungs and letting the deer snithe, hild, and bear bughs underwater. Small forefeet with five clawed toes craftily handel food. The hindfeet are rather great, and the five toes are bund by webbing, which makes hem work as rudders for swimming underwater. Claws of the other hindtoes are cloven and have toothed edges noted for dighting the hair. Hair is made up of a greyish to brune layer of short, small, and thick underhair that keeps water from reaching the hide. Over this layer are long, great, sleek, overhairs spanning in hew from yellowish brune thrugh reddish brune to black; underdeals of the deer are lighter. The hallmark tail is shaly, even, and ruddershaped and spans up to 18 inches long and 5 inches wide. Both hoads have beaverkernels that weep a smelly wose (beaver eal), which is left on mud or stones to mark meres between walks. Arsekernels weep eal thrugh hideholes to hairstems. From there it is spread with the forefeet and dighting claws over the whole body to keep the hair sleek, ealy, and watershedding.

Beavers live in clusters and are mostly wights of the night. Hir often whilved iland hulks are bilt of bughs smeared in mud. In marshes, meres, and small eas, beavers may instead bild bank hulks, and in great eas and meres hy delve bank dens with an underwater infare beneath treemores or overhanging ledges. Each hulk is bued by a maith cluster of up to eight deer: a fullgrown twosum, yong of the year, and yearlings from yesteryears team. Hulks are mosttimes 10 feet high and 20 feet wide at the bottom but can be as great as 16 feet high and 39 feet wide. One or more infares open beneath the waterline into a roomy middel abuvewater; the floor is thached with worts. An infare leads to the nestroom abuve the waterline. In winter the wet walls freese, keeping heat in and making the hulk a fasten ayenst hunters.

Beavers often bild a dam a short ways dunestream from the hulk to ward off hunters. The dam withsets the streams flow and deepens the water that belaps the hulk. Dams also beyet more wetland dwellings for fish and waterfule and hold back or slow the dunestream flow of eal spilt into eas. The notes to the land these dams yeave notwithstanding, landowners and bures often hold beavers as bothersum deer forthat hy sumtimes fell lite trees, eat crops, or flood roads and feelds with water held behind hir dams.

Bin winter beavers stow sum fat at the tailstem, but hy keep warm mostly by nestelling in the heattrapping hulk and doing less. Hy leave the hulk only to feed on bughs stowed beneath the ise. Slow swimmers, beavers can keep underwater for up to 15 minnits and shrithe hemselves mostly with the webbed hindfeet while the forefeet are held nigh ayenst the body. On land hy walk or run with a waddel. Hy eat mostly the soft underrind of trees, as well as the eyes, leaves, and twigs of sundry trees (mostly willows and aspens). Pondgreens and bankside worts are also eaten. Leafy worts are eaten mostly bin summer and wood bin winter. Shrubs, saplings, and trees are felled by beavers, gnawed into bearenly lengths, and drawn along mudslides or floated thrugh beavermade diches to the hulk. Eatenly bughs are stowed underwater and stuck in mud near the hulk infare, where hy are to be eaten all winter when the beavers cannot break thrugh the ise to gnaw fresh bughs.

Beavers have one make, making between Afteryool and Lide in the north and Blootmonth and Ereyool in the suthe. One team a year of one to nine (most often fore) yong are born in the spring after a bearing of 105 days. Beavers talk by standings, speech, smellmarking, and tailstriking. When startelled on land, hy flee to water and warn others by striking the waters bred with hir tails, beyetting a lude, startelling din. Erns, great hawks, and most great suckeldeer hunters feed on beavers.

Americkish beavers (C. canadensis) live thrughute wooded deals of Northamerick to northern Mexicko, yinning the suthewestern Oned Riches and byland Florida. Beavers were at the heart of the hide chaffer bin settelling times and yave greatly to the westward settelling and growth of the Oned Riches and Canada. As the deer was trapt ute in the east, trappers fared stepwise westward, and settellers followed. Nearly driven ute by 1900 thrugh overgreat trapping for hir luvely hair, hy have nimmen back, either by hemselves or thrugh man, much of hir former reach, and meted trapping goes on, hure in Canada. Americkish beavers have been brought into Finland, where hy are theeing.

Ewraysish beavers (C. fiber) were onse fund thrughute mild and cold wolds of the land (yinning Britten) but for the lands abute the Middel Sea and Yapan. By the early 20th yearhundred this reach had shrunken, and at the beginning of the 21st yearhundred wild stocks beleft only in the Elve and Rone drainings, suthern Norway, Frankland, Mongoly, China, and deals of Russland, hure northwestern Sibery and the lands of the Altay. Work to spread ayen the Ewraysish stock began in Sweeland in the early 1920s. Sinse that time, Ewraysish beavers have been brought ayen thrughute Ewrope, western Sibery, western China, Mongoly, Camchatca, and near the Amur in the Russish Far East.

Beavers make up the maith Castoridae (underrow Sciuromorpha, row Rodentia). With no nigh living kin (the barrow beaver belongs to a sundry maith), latterday beavers are the lave of a rich lifetree of 24 dead knoosels going back to the Late Eosene Eld of Asey and the Early Oligosene of Ewrope and Northamerick. Hy were mostly burrowers in the earth, such as Palaeocastor, which is known by ansenstones from Late Oligosene-Early Miosene settellings of western Nebraska and eastern Wyoming. Hy likely lived in upland grasslands in great clusters, delved lengthy burrow networks, and grased under the sun, hir whole way of life being much alike to that of latterday wongdogs. The greatest gnawdeer that ever lived in Northamerick was the twilived ettin beaver (Castoroides) of the Pleistosene Eld. Ansenstones show that it had a body length of 6 feet and was abute the great of a black bear.