The American Museum Journal 



Volume XIV 



APRIL, 1914 



Number 4 



THE AMERICAN BEAVER 



THE NEW BEAVER GROUP IN THE AMERICAN MUSEUM — 

 AND BEAVERS IN GENERAL 



By Frederic A. Lucas 



IT is not without diffidence that we 

 announce the completion of a beaver 

 group, for fear lest our critical 

 friends should ask why it is that such an 

 interesting and important animal was 

 not long ago represented in an institu- 

 tion bearing the name of the American 

 Museum of Natural History. For the 

 beaver is one of the most characteristic, 

 most interesting and most widely dis- 

 tributed of North American mammals 

 and time was when it was the most 

 important. As Merriam writes in the 

 Mammals of the Adirondachs: "No ani- 

 mal has figured more prominently in the 

 affairs of any nation than has the beaver 

 in the early history of the New World. 

 Its influence on the exploration, coloniza- 

 tion and settlement of this country was 

 very great. The trade in its peltries 

 proved a source of competition and 

 strife, not only among the local mer- 

 chants, but also among the several col- 

 onies, disputes over the boundaries hav- 

 ing frequently arisen from this cause 

 alone." And if it is not endowed with 

 the almost human skill and intelligence 

 we were brought up to believe that it 

 possessed, its keen instincts and engineer- 

 ing ability may well excite our admira- 

 tion and respect. ' 



The former importance of the beaver 

 was due to its use in the manufacture 

 of the fashionable, expensive and cum- 

 brous beaver hat, a species among hats 



almost as extinct as the great auk among 

 birds, and like it known to the present 

 generation mainly from specimens pre- 

 served in museums. A variety however 

 still survives in Wales, which was also the 

 last abiding place of the beaver in Bri- 

 tain. In one of its many forms it is seen 

 in the familiar portrait of Pocahontas, 

 and it will probably survive for genera- 

 tions to come in the cartoonists' " Uncle 

 Sam," whose dress would be incomplete 

 without the bell-crowned beaver hat. 



It is just possible that in days gone by 

 the beaver hat may have been worn for 

 other reasons than simply to keep the 

 head warm. Almost every natural pro- 

 duct was supposed to be endowed with 

 some malign or beneficent property and 

 the beaver hat was guaranteed to cure 

 deafness and stimulate the memory. 



Trade in beaver skins began early, 

 almost with the founding of the first 

 colonies. In 1624 the Dutch shipped 

 four hundred skins from New Amster- 

 dam; by 1635 the number had increased 

 to nearly fifteen thousand — 14,981, to be 

 exact, and the beaver was deemed of 

 sufficient importance to be adopted as 

 the seal of the colony. Albany — Fort 

 Orange it was in those days — was the 

 headquarters of the Dutch fur trade, 

 and from there it went to the French at 

 Montreal, only somewhat later to pass 

 to the English. 



An interesting feature of the early 



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