THE BEAVER 673 
The Beaver was undoubtedly a very common British mammal in 
the later prehistoric periods, and to its activities we may owe some 
very striking features of the present English landscape. Thus in East 
Anglia, as Dr Henry Woodward (Tyvans. Essex F. C., 1883, iii., 8) first 
pointed out, the inception of the fens may have been due to the 
destruction of the primitive woodland by the Beaver, and the obstruction 
of the natural drainage formed by prostrate tree-trunks as well as by 
regular beaver-dams. Stubbs (a. cz¢.) similarly ascribes the destruction 
of the Pennine woodland and the formation of the peat-mosses of 
Lancashire, etc, to the work of Beavers. Similar changes are being 
or have been recently wrought by the same agency on a large scale 
in North America (Geikie, Textbook of Geol., 1893, 474). 
In Scotland also the remains of Beavers have been discovered, on 
several occasions, in the marly beds commonly found at the bases of the 
peat-mosses, The earliest find recorded is apparently that made in the 
deposits of the Loch of Marlee, Kinloch, Perthshire, in 1788; here a 
Beaver skeleton was found in a marl-pit, beneath 5 or 6 feet of peat; 
the skull and haunch bones were presented to the Society of 
Antiquaries of Scotland by Dr Farquharson (J/zxute, 16th December 
1788; Neill, Zainb. Phil. Journ. 1819, 1., 182). Neill (of. czt., 184), to 
whom we owe much of our knowledge of the history of the Beaver in 
this island, describes a skeleton found in 1818 in the course of draining 
Middlestot’s Bog, in the parish of Edrom, Berwickshire. 
As the country became settled the Beaver grew scarce and 
eventually disappeared. Apart from human persecution it is perhaps 
doubtful whether a small island like Britain could have long continued 
to support a large population of Beavers. There is no doubt that the 
animal lingered on in the historic period, and it probably did not 
become extinct here before the thirteenth century. In the Leges 
Wallice (book iii, ss. 11, 12), dating from the first half of the tenth 
century, skins of Martens, Otters, and Beavers (Liostlydan) are 
mentioned; and while 24 and 12 pence respectively are stated to be 
the values of the skins of the first two species, that of the Beaver is 
valued at no less asum than 120 pence. The fur is said to have 
been used for the trimmings of the royal robes, and the high price set 
upon it shows that even at that remote date the Beaver had become 
extremely rare. 
Gerald de Barri, better known as Giraldus Cambrensis, lived in 
Ireland between 1185 and 1188, and in his TYofographia Hibernica 
(Distznc., i.,c. 21) he notes the absence of the Beaver from that country. 
In 1188 he travelled through Wales with Baldwin, who was then 
preaching the Third Crusade. In his /¢znerarium Kambrie (book ii., 
c. 3) Giraldus, as translated by Sir R. Colt Hoare, states that “the 
noble river Teivi,” in Cardiganshire, has a productive salmon “ fishery 
