trap, it is equal to a certificate of enlistment, and indicates, when an Indian carries his furs to another trading establishment, that the individual wishes to avoid the payment of his debts. The business of trapping, which takes place in winter, 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. It is necessary that the hands should be washed clean before the trap is handled and baited, and that every precaution should be employed to elude the vigilance of the animal.

The beavers swim to a considerable distance under water, but cannot remain for a long time without coming to the surface for air. They are therefore caught with greater ease, as they must either take refuge in their vaults or washes in the banks, or seek their huts again to get breath. When disturbed, they usually fly from their huts to these vaults, which, though not so much exposed to observation as their houses, are yet discovered with sufficient ease, and allow the occupant to be more readily captured than if he had remained in his ordinary habitation. To capture beaver residing on a small river or creek, the Indians find it necessary to stake the stream across to prevent them from escaping, and then to ascertain where the vaults or washes in the banks are situated. This can be done only by those who are experienced in such explorations, and is thus performed. The hunter is furnished with an ice-chisel lashed to a handle four or five feet in length. With this instrument he strikes against the ice as he goes along the edge of the banks. The sound produced by the blow

informs him when he is opposite one of the vaults. When one is discovered, a hole is cut through the ice of sufficient size to admit a full-grown beaver, and the search is continued until as many of the places of retreat are discovered as possible. During the time the most expert hunters are thus occupied, the others, with the women, are busy in breaking into the beaver houses. The animals, alarmed at the invasion of their dwelling, take to the water and swim with surprising swiftness to their retreats in the banks; but their entrance is betrayed to the hunters watching the holes in the ice, by the motion and discoloration of the water. The entrance is instantly closed with stakes of wood, and the beaver, instead of finding shelter in his cave, is captured. The hunter pulls the animal out, if within reach, with his hand, or by a hook with a long handle. Beaver-houses in lakes or other standing waters offer an easier prey to the hunters, as there is no necessity for staking the water across.

Among the Hudson's Bay Indians, every hunter has the exclusive right to all the beavers caught in the washes discovered by him. Each individual, on finding one, places some mark, as a pole, or the branch of a tree stuck up, in order to know his own. Beavers caught in any house are also the property of the discoverer, who takes care to mark his claim, as in the case of the washes.

Beside beavers, there are a great number of other fur-bearing animals caught by the hunters of North America, as the following table of the skins exported from the British settlements alone, in the year 1831, will show

There are a considerable number also exported, not included in the above statement. The annual value of all the furs exported from British America, is estimated at ten millions of dollars, which is, probably, not more than half the value of all the furs, produced by North America, each year.

As the most valuable furs are taken in the coldest regions, many of the hunters experience the greatest hardships in pursuing animals in high latitudes. In Siberia, especially, the adventurers seek the sable and marten, even within the Arctic Circle, and nothing can exceed the dreariness of the life they lead in these chill and solitary realms. Some of them are sent thither by the government, who exact from the unhappy exiles, the stipulated supply with the most rigorous severity.

THE Orkney and Shetland Islands, and the Hebrides exhibit the most striking instances of adventurous daring in this pursuit. It is a common employment in some of these islands to gather among the crags the eggs of the sea-fowl, and to catch the birds themselves. Compared with this, the part of him who "gathers samphire" on the cliffs of Dover, is one of safety and pleasure. The sea-fowl make their resort in the cavities of lofty and beetling cliffs of the rocky shores; and the natives, by means of a rope

round the body, let themselves down over precipices sometimes a quarter of a mile in height, the sight of which would disorder a man of common nerves. Yet the fowler, with a line of many fathoms held by several companions above, descends, and, disengaging himself from the rope, enters cavities in the rock higher than the arch of any Gothic church. In this dangerous labor many persons perish from falling stones and other causes. It is recorded that one of these adventurers discovered that the rope by which he was suspended was so much chafed by the edge of the rock, that he hung by a single strand. He could not give immediate signals to his comrades, and when he was drawn up, it was found that the extremity of his terror had been such as to blanch his hair. From the tops of these dizzy precipices, the mountainous waves breaking below seem like ripples, and the roar can hardly be heard.

It is chiefly on the most rugged shores of Scotland, or on the more craggy rocks of the adjacent islands, that bird catching is carried on in the perfection of its horrors. St. Kilda, a small island in the midst of the Atlantic ocean, contains a few people who, from infancy accustomed to precipices, drop from crag to crag as fearlessly as the birds themselves. Their great dependence is upon ropes of two sorts-one made of hides; the other of hair of cows' tails, all of the same thickness. These are of various lengths, from ninety to two hundred feet, and three inches in circumference. So valuable are these ropes, that one of them forms the marriage portion of a St. Kilda girl.