110 COMMON BRITISH ANIMALS 



and more scarce. It was extinct in England in pre- 

 historic times, but its fossil remains in the very 

 recent deposit of the fens of Cambridgeshire, and 

 the turbaries of the Lea Valley, and in the deposits 

 of the Norfolk Forest bed, Rentes Hole, Torquay, 

 and the Thames Valley, tell us tliat it was once an 

 inhabitant of this country, and many place-names tell 

 the same story. Examples of these names are 

 Beverley in Yorkshire, Beverage in Worcestershire, 

 Bevercater in Nottinghamshire, Beverstone in 

 Grioucestershire, and Beversbrook in Wiltshire. A 

 small tributary of the Severn is known as Barbourne 

 or Beaverbourne, and near to it is an island called 

 Beaver Island, while further up is another island 

 called Beverage or Beaverage. In Wales and Scot- 

 land there is historic evidence of the beaver. 

 Giraldus Cambrensis, in his ' Itinei-ary through 

 Wales,' says they were living in 1188 on the banks 

 of the Tievi in Cardiganshire, and the King Howel 

 Dda, who died in 948 a.d., fixed the price of a beaver 

 skin at 120 pence, the skins of Avolf, stag and fox 

 being only worth eightpence each. 



The Welsh name for beaver was " Llosh-llyddan," 

 which means " broad-tail." Giraldus also remarks 

 that beavers were found in Scotland in one river, 

 but were very scarce. " Yet,'' Mr. Millais says, 

 "we know that in the reign of David I the skins 

 figured amongst Scotch exports of the twelfth 

 century, although they no longer appear in accounts 

 of export duties in the reign of James I (1424). 

 Yet Hector Boece, writing in 1526, states with con- 

 fidence that beavers existed in Loch Ness at that 



