162 FIELD MUSEUM or NATURAL HISTORY ZOOLOGY, VOL. XL 



Illinois, dated April 7, 1910, who writes, "From the best information 

 I can get, there are a few Beaver in Alexander County." There are 

 but few records of even comparatively recent date for Illinois. Thomas 

 records a specimen killed in Jackson Co., in 1851 (/. c., p. 657). Ever- 

 mann and Butler state that a Beaver was seen swimming in the Wabash 

 River about 12 miles above Lafayette, Indiana, in the summer of 1889 

 (I. c.,p. 1 28) . According to early writers, however, they were common in 

 suitable localities throughout the state in the early part of the last 

 century. Woods (1820-21) says, "To the north of us [English Prairie, 

 Illinois] there are buffalo and elks, also beavers and others on the 

 rivers.'' * We also find in the records of Long's expedition the follow- 

 ing statement, "Deer, turkeys and beaver are still found in plenty in 

 the low grounds along both sides of the Mississippi" f [two miles north 

 of the confluence of the Ohio and Mississippi]. In 1854 Kennicott 

 writes, "The remains of beaver dams exist in several streams" [Cook 

 Co.]. (1. c., p. 579.) Mr. G. E. Wood states, "The beaver seems to 

 have been practically exterminated in this part of the state [Cham- 

 paign Co.] before the first permanent settlers came. There was an 

 extensive dam on the South Fork a few miles above Urbana, and 

 several others less generally known, on the lower part of the Salt 

 Fork." (/. c., p. 536.) 



In Wisconsin they are still to be found in more or less numbers in 

 most of the northern counties, although for many years they have been 

 exterminated in the southern part of the state. Lapham states that 

 "The last Beaver killed, in the southern part of Wisconsin, was in 1819, 

 on Sugar Creek, Walworth County, a very large one." (/. c., p. 339, 

 foot note.) Several colonies are known in Marinette, Forest, Iron and 

 a number of other counties in northern Wisconsin. Mr. W. J. Webster 

 of Park Falls writes me (1909) that there are "quite a number of 

 Beaver in Price Co." According to Mr. N. Lucins, Jr., of Solon 

 Springs, in 1909 there was a large family of Beavers on the Moose 

 River in Douglas County. It is reported to occur in Wisconsin at least 

 as far south as Buffalo County. Mr. J. Hobbs of Medford, Taylor Co., 

 informs me that there are a number of Beaver in Taylor Co., and 

 that he knows where there are "a few Beaver dams with Beavers in 

 them." Mr. George F. Erzwein of Athens, who is an experienced 

 trapper, informs me they are still to be found in Marathon Co. 



In northern Michigan Beaver were at one time very numerous, and 

 it was in the Michigan peninsula south of Lake Superior that Mr. 



* Woods, J. Two Years' Residence in the Settlement on English Prairie in the 

 Illinois Country, 1820-1821 (1822), p. 290. 



t James, E. Expedition from Pittsburgh to the Rocky Mountains, 1819-1820 

 (1823), p. 42. 



