ABSTRACT
SOLINUS’S assertion that the beaver castrates itself so that its capture will not be profitable to men appears, certainly in northern districts, to have scant connection with the truth, as Pliny affirms in Ch. 3 of his Bk XXXII, for whenever hunters have caught it, its testicles are always still attached, larger or smaller according to the animal’s size. They are closely drawn up and fixed to the backbone, so that they cannot be removed without the beaver’s losing its life. 2
