10 J. E. HAETING AJflMALS "WHICH HAVE BECOME 



Harrison, in his 'Description of England,' prefixed to Holinshed's 

 'Chronicles,' remarks, "For to sale the truth we have not manie. 

 beavers, but onelie in the Teifie in Wales." * The precise spot on 

 the river appears to have been Killgarran, which is situated on the 

 summit of a rock at a place called Carnach Mawr (now Kenarth), 

 where there is a salmon-leap. 



Drayton, in his ' Polyolbion ' (Song vi.), thus versifies the 

 tradition : — 



"More famous long agone than for the salmon's leap, 

 For beavers Teivi was, in liis strong banks that bred, 

 Which else no other brook of Britain noirrished : 

 Where natxtre in the shape of this now perish' d beast 

 Her property did seem to have wondiously exprest." 



There is some reason for supposing, however, that there were other 

 rivers in Wales besides the Teivi which were frequented by these 

 animals. "In the Conway," says Camden, " is the beaver's pool," 

 and a portion of the river above Llanwrst is supposed to have been 

 a beaver's dam. 



Sir Richard Colt Hoare, in his edition of the ' Itinerary ' of 

 Giraldus, remarks: "If the Castor of Giraldus and the Avanc of 

 Humphrey Llwyd and of the Welsh dictionaries be really the same 

 animal, it certainly is not peculiar to the Teivi, but was equally 

 known in North Wales, as the names of places testify. A. small 

 lake in Montgomeryshire is called Llyn yr Afangc ; a pool in the 

 river Conway, not far from Bettws, bears the same name (the 

 beaver's pool) ; and the name of the vale called Nant Ffrancon, 

 upon the river Ogwen in Caernarvonshire, is supposed by the 

 natives to be a corruption from Nant yr afancwm or the Vale of the 

 Beavers." 



Owen, in his 'Welsh Dictionary' (1801), says that it has been 

 "seen in this valley within the memory of man;" but, says Sir 

 Richard Hoare, "I am much inclined to think that Avanc or 

 Afangc is nothing more than an obsolete or perhaps a local name 

 for the common otter, an animal exceedingly well-known in all our 

 lakes and rivers, and the recognition of it by Mr. Owen considerably 

 strengthens my supposition. Afangcwm is evidently the plural 

 Afangi, composed of the words Afan, a corrupt pronunciation of 

 Afon, 'a river,' and Ci, 'a dog,' synonymous, as I conceive, 

 with Byfrgi, ' the water-dog,' which is the common appellation 

 of the otter among the Welsh. The term Llostlydan or ' broad- 

 tail,' from Llost, tail, and Llydan, broad, appears to be more imme- 

 diately applicable to the character of the beaver as described by 

 naturalists, and is equally authorised by the Welsh dictionaries, 

 though not so often used as Afangc.'''' \ 



Upon this we would remark that while it is pretty certain that 

 the animal seen according to Owen, " within the memory of man," 



* Holinshed's ' Chronicles,' vol. i, p. 379 (1587). 

 t 'Itinerary,' ed. Hoare, vol. ii, pp. 56, 57. 



