34 EXTINCT BRITISH ANIMALS. 
laws relating to hunting and fishing. It is there 
laid down that the king is to have the worth of 
Beavers, Martens, and Ermines, in whatsoever spot 
they shall be killed, because from them the borders 
of the king’s garments are made. 
The price of a Beaver’s skin, termed ‘“croen 
llostlydan,” at that time was fixed at 120 pence, 
while the skin of a Marten was only 24 pence, and 
that of a Wolf, Fox, and Otter 8 pence. This shows 
that even at that period the Beaver was a rare animal 
in Wales. ) 
The superior warmth and comfort which the 
Beaver’s skin afforded, added to the reputation of 
the medicinal properties of the castor, must have 
operated as a very powerful incitement to hunt the 
Beaver in those early times. We must, therefore, 
refer the period of their abundance in this country 
to an age much earlier than that of Howel Dha, the 
period, perhaps, before the Britons were driven from 
the more southern parts of Britain into the wilds of 
Cambria by the Romans, Danes, and Saxons, and 
when the mountainous wilds of Wales were almost 
unreclaimed from a state of Nature by the hand of 
cultivation. At such a time, it is very likely, the 
Beavers were numerous in many of the mountain 
streams and pools, but after the defeat of Vortigern, 
who settled with a remnant of his scattered Britons 
among these mountains, it is easy to conceive the 
Beaver would be sought for by the hunters, perhaps 
for the sake of food, and certainly for its fur; so 
that after the lapse of some centuries which passed 
