THE BEAVER. 35 
before the time of Howel Dha, its numbers 
would be progressively diminished, and that very 
considerably. There still remained, however, ex- 
tensive wastes in Howel’s time, for it was among 
the laws of that prince that every man was entitled 
to so much land of that kind as he should bring into 
cultivaticn. We cannot imagine, therefore, that the 
Beaver was unable to find a secure retreat among 
the valleys of these barren mountains, the hills of 
Snowdon.* 
Howel Dha died in the year 948; the travels 
of Giraldus de Barri—or, as he is generally 
styled, Giraldus Cambrensis—did not take place 
till about two hundred and _ fifty years after- 
wards ; it cannot, therefore, excite surprise that the 
Beaver had then become scarce and local, since 
we have seen the value attached to its skin, and 
established by law between two and three centuries 
before that time. 
In his quaint account of the journey he made 
through Wales in 1188, in company with Baldwin, 
Archbishop of Canterbury (who afterwards fell before 
Acre in the train of Richard Coeur de Lion), Giraldus 
tells us that the Beaver was found in the river Teivi 
in Cardiganshire, and gives a curious account of its 
habits, apparently derived in some part from his own 
observation.t 
Harrison, in his description of England prefixed to 
Holinshed’s ‘ Chronicles,” remarks: ‘‘ For to saie 
* Donovan, “ British Quadrupeds.” 
+ “Itinerary,” ed. Hoare, vol. ii. p. 49. 
