THE BEAVER 669 
Terminology :—The English name of this animal has always been 
the “ Beaver,” the spelling of the word showing, as usual, considerable 
variation at different periods. The Mew English Dictionary mentions 
“ beofor,’ “ befor,” “ byfor,” “ befer,” “ beuer,” “ bever,’ “ bevere, “ bevyr,” 
“ deauer,’ and “deavor” as forerunners of the current form. Of these 
“ beofor” and “befor” are the earliest,and appear in Atlfric’s Vocabulary 
(¢. 1000 A.D.) as the translation of the Latin fier. 
Local names :—(Non-Celtic)—“ Spattletail” may have been an 
ancient local name for the Beaver; it is given as the translation of 
Llostlydan y befyr, “the Spattletail or Beaver,” mentioned in the 
Anomalous Laws of Wales (Laws and Instit. of Wales, I1., bk. xiv., 592 ; 
and Stubbs, Lanc. Nat., 1910, 129). But in view of the fact that this 
name is apparently quite unknown to the makers of dictionaries, it 
seems more probable that the word was coined comparatively recently 
to serve as an apt translation of the Celtic //ostlydan discussed below. 
(Celtic) :—Welsh—Léostlydan “the broad-tail”: ostlydan or Castor 
occurs in the Leges Wallice or Laws of Howel Dda (book iii. 
ss. II, 12), dating from the tenth century; afange or avanc (discussed 
below under History). 
Cornish :—efer. 
Scotch Gaelic:—Leas-leathan (Highland Society’s Dzct.), dobhran 
leas-leathan (Shaw, Gael. Dict., 1780), leas-leathain (Robertson). 
The Welsh and Scottish Gaelic names cited above are descriptive, 
and there can be little or no doubt that they were applied to the 
Beaver. JLéost or leas, with the Old Irish /oss, signifies “tail,” and 
llydan or leathan = “broad,” hence /ostlydan means “broad-tail.” 
Dobhran-chu signifies “water-dog,” or Otter, and therefore the com- 
bination dobhran leas-leathan =the “ broad-tailed Otter,” or Beaver. 
The similarity of the Welsh and Scotch names is of course striking, 
but a good deal of doubt exists as to the status of /eas-/eathan in the 
Highland tongue. The Gaels could have had no personal knowledge 
of the Beaver in Ireland, and it is suggested by Robertson that on their 
arrival in Scotland they “borrowed a name from the native Pictish 
inhabitants.” For a full discussion of this matter the reader may be 
referred to C. H. Alston’s Weld Life in the West Highlands, 34. From 
what is stated below with regard to the etymology of the word 
“beaver,” it is probable that the original and general Celtic name for 
the animal was not a descriptive term, like “ostlydan, but a variant of 
the Old Aryan debhrus ; and thus one can account for the use of defyr 
in the Anomalous Laws of Wales, and for the presence of defer in 
Cornish without supposing that these words crept into Celtic vocabu- 
laries by contact with Anglo-Saxons. “ Beaver” was probably common 
to the languages of both races long before they met on British soil. 
History and past distribution :—The range of the Beaver in the 
VOL. II. 2) U2 
