24 Transactions of the 



nients which have obscured the original. There is indeed so 

 much that is remarkable in the habits of the Beaver, that 

 they cannot fail to prove interesting to anyone, even when 

 divested of all that imagination has added to them, and 

 narrated in the plain language of truth. 



For much recent information on this subject we are in- 

 debted to Mr. Ashdown Green, an old trapper well acquainted 

 with the Canadian hunting grounds, and to Mr. Robert 

 Brown, who has spent much time in the wild districts of 

 British Columbia and Vancouver's Island. These gentlemen 

 have recently communicated a joint paper to the Linnsean 

 Society,' containing many points of interest previously un- 

 noticed, and contradicting a considerable number of the 

 statements in current acceptation. From this source, and 

 from some other authentic information, I have mainly com- 

 piled the substance of the following account. 



The Beaver is found plentifully throughout Canada, and 

 indeed over the entire northern part of the American con- 

 tinent. Like most other animals of far northern latitudes, 

 it is found in the Old World as well, being frequently captured 

 both in Siberia and the north of European Eussia. It has 

 been also recorded as existing plentifully on the banks of the 

 Euphrates, while colonies of it undoubtedly exist on the 

 Nuthe, a tributary of the Elbe, and isolated individuals are 

 met with on the Rhone, and perhaps also on the Danube. 

 This animal is, then, by no means limited in its area of dis- 

 tribution, and in former times it spread over even more 

 extensive regions. Old traditions, supported by historical 

 records, show that the Beaver was once an inhabitant of 

 Great Britain and Scandinavia. Indeed it has only com- 

 paratively recently become extinct in Scotland, for in a 

 translation of Boethius' ' Croniklis of Scotland,' published by 

 command of James V. in the middle of the sixteenth century, 

 the animal is mentioned without hesitation as having existed 

 in the Highlands, and could we only accept Highland tra- 

 dition as truth, we should have to say that it was found at 

 Lochaber long afterwards. Such evidence, however, requires 

 to be taken cum, grano salts in a case where the Scotch 

 national pride is involved ; yet it is interesting to observe that 

 a special Gaelic word for the animal is, or was lately, in use 

 (Losleathan), signifying the Broad- tailed Otter. In the 

 curious old story of ' Giraldus Cambrensis,' vrritten about 

 the year 1158, and recording the events of a journey made 



' Jovrn. Lin. Soc. vol. x. No. 46, 1869. 



