EXTINCT IN BRITAIN WITHIN HISTORIC TIMES. 11 



•was the otter, the minute description given by Giraldus shows that 

 the animal to which he referred was the beaver. 



After stating th;»t the Teivi was the only river in Wales or even 

 in England that had beavers, he adds, "in Scotland they are said 

 to be found in one river, but are very scarce." 



Hector Boece (or Boethius), that shrewd old father of Scottish 

 historians, writing in 1526, enumerates the Jib ri,'^' or beavers, 

 with perfect confidence, amongst the /era naturce of Loch Ness, 

 wliose fur was in request for exportation towards the end of the 

 fifteenth centuiy ; and he even speaks of " an incomparable 

 number," though perhaps he may be only availing himself of a 

 privilege which moderns have taken the liberty of granting to 

 mediaeval authors when dealing with curious facts. Bellenden, in 

 his vernacular translation of Boethius' ' Croniklis of Scotland,' 

 which he undertook at royal request in 1536, while omitting stags, 

 roedecr, and even otters, in his anxiety for accuracy, mentions 

 " beavers" without the slightest hesitation ; and though exception 

 may be taken to the first clause of the sentence, yet the passage is 

 worth quoting. " Mony wyld hors and among yame are mony 

 martrikis [pine-martens], heavers, quhitredis [weasels], and toddis 

 [foxes], the furriugs and skynnis of yame are coft [bought] with 

 great price amang uncouth [foreign] merchandis." 



More than a century later Sir Robert Sibbald was unable to say 

 that the beaver still existed in Scotland. In his 'Scotia Illustrata,' 

 published in 1684, he remarks (pars iii. cap. v.) : ^^ Boethius dicit 

 Fibrum seu Castoreni in Scotia reperiri, an nime reperiatur nescioT 



It is more than probable, says Dr. Robert Brown, that these 

 worthy historians were influenced by a little of the pride of 

 country — the perfervidum ingenium Scotorum — when they recorded 

 the beaver as an inhabitant of Loch Ness in the fifteenth century, 

 since no mention is made of it in an Act of Parliament dated June, 

 1424, although " mertricks, foumartes, otters, and toddis " are 

 specified. They were perhaps so strongly impressed by the wide- 

 spread tradition of its existence in former days as to lead them 

 to enumerate it among the animals of Scotland, and it may be 

 observed that the authors quoted boast immoderately of the pro- 

 ductions of their country. 



At the beginning of the century (at least) the Highlanders had a 

 peculiar name for the animal — Losleathan or JDobhran losleathan, 

 the broad-tailed otter,f and according to Dr. Stewart, of Luss, in 

 a letter to the late Dr. Patrick Neill, Secretary of the Werncrian 

 Society of Natural History, a tradition used to exist that the beaver, 

 or broad-tailed otter, once lived in Locbaber. 



It must be confessed that the written records Ave have of its 

 occurrence are very fragmentary, and not wholly satisfactory, but 

 abundant evidence of its former existence in this country, at a date 

 anterior to these historical notices, is supplied by the remains of 



* Fibri from fiber, denoting an animal that is fond of the fibrum, or edge of 

 the water. 



t Compare the "Welsh Llostlydan. 



