40 EXTINCT BRITISH ANIMALS. 
After stating that the Teivi was the only river in 
Wales, or even in England, that had Beavers, 
Giraldus remarks : “ 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 
Fibri,* or Beavers, with perfect confidence, amongst 
the fere nature of Loch Ness, whose fur was in 
request for exportation towards the end of the 
fifteenth century, and he even speaks of ‘“‘ an incom- 
parable number,” though perhaps he may be only 
availing himself of a privilege which moderns have 
taken the liberty of granting to medizval 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, roe-deer, and even 
otters, in his anxiety for accuracy, mentions “ Bevers ” 
without the slightest hesitation; and, though ex- 
ception may be taken to the first clause of the 
sentence, yet the passage is worth quoting: ‘‘ Mony 
wyld Hors and amang yame are mony Martrikis 
[pine martens|, Bevers, Quhitredis [weasels], and 
Toddis [foxes], the furrings and skynnis of thayme 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 
* Fibri, from Fiber, denoting an animal that is fond of the fibrum 
or edge, of the water. 
