Monday (Tuesday) January 7th. 1806.
LAST evening Drewyer visited his traps and caught a
beaver and an otter; the beaver was large and fat we
have therefore fared sumptuously today; this we consider
a great prize for another reason, it being a full grown
beaver was well supplyed with the materials for making bate
with which to catch others. this bate when properly prepared
will intice the beaver to visit it as far as he can smell it, and
this I think may be safely stated at a mile, their sense of smelling
being very accute. To prepare beaver bate, the castor or
bark stone is taken as the base, this is gently pressed out of
the bladderlike bag which contains it, into a phiol of 4 ounces
with a wide mouth; if you have them you will put from four
to six stone in a phiol of that capacity, to this you will add
half a nutmeg, a douzen or 15 grains of cloves and thirty grains
of cinimon finely pulverized, stir them well together and then
add as much ardent sperits to the composition as will reduce
it the consistency [of] mustard prepared for the table; when
thus prepared it resembles mustard precisely to all appearance.
when you cannot procure a phiol a bottle made of horn or a
tight earthen vessel will answer, in all cases it must be excluded
from the air or it will soon loose it's virtue; it is fit for uce
immediately it is prepared but becomes much stronger and
better in about four or five days and will keep for months
provided it be perfectly secluded from the air. when cloves
are not to be had use double the quantity of Allspice, and
when no spice can be obtained use the bark of the root of
sausafras; when sperits can not be had use oil stone of the
beaver adding mearly a sufficient quantity to moisten the other
materials, or reduce it to a stif past[e.] it appears to me that
the principal uce of the spices is only to give a variety to the
scent of the bark stone and if so the mace vineller [vanilla]
and other sweetsmelling spices might be employed with equal
advantage. The male beaver has six stones, two [of] which
contain a substance much like finely pulvarized bark of a pale
yellow colour and not unlike tanner's ooz in smell, these are
called the
bark stones or castors;
[1]
two others, which like the
bark stone resemble small bladders, contain a pure oil of a
strong rank disagreeable smell, and not unlike train oil, these
are called the
oil stones; and 2 others of generation. the Barkstones
are about two inc[h]es in length, the others somewhat
smaller all are of a long oval form, and lye in a bunch together
between the skin and the root of the tail, beneath or
behind the fundament with which they are closely connected
and seem to communicate. the pride of the female lyes on
the inner side much like those of the hog. they have no
further parts of generation that I can perceive and therefore
beleive that like the birds they copulate with the extremity of
the gut. The female have from two to four young ones at a
birth and bring fourth once a year only, which usually happens
about the latter end of may and begining of June. at this
stage she is said to drive the male from the lodge, who would
otherwise destroy the young. dryed our lodge and had it put
away under shelter; this is the first day during which we have
had no rain since we arrived at this place. nothing extraordinary
happened today.
