BEAVER AND NUTRIA 119 



Beaver were formerly plentiful on every continent of the world. 

 To-day, they are only park specimens in Europe ; and the range of 

 the beaver has decreased so in America, he is found only round the 

 Great Lakes and Hudson Bay, in Labrador, in the hinterland of 

 Northern Ontario, in Athabasca and British Columbia. The yearly 

 catch used to be in the hundreds of thousands, when flotillas 

 of Northern canoes came down the Ottawa in brigades and flooded 

 Montreal and Quebec and all New France in coin of the realm — 

 Beaver. To-day, the catch is given by Brass as 80,000 for America, 

 1000 for Asia, and a few park specimens for Europe. 



What especially stimulated beaver hunting was the fact that 

 the beaver pelt could be used for fur, the waste fur rubbed on belly 

 and sides could be used for felts and hats, the tail was as great a 

 delicacy on the banquet board as "bear's paws," the general flesh 

 was preferred to game birds, and the castoreum sold for the per- 

 fume trade at #12 to $15 a pound. Presumably, the discard flesh 

 could be fed to the dogs of the Northern dog trains ; but every 

 atom of beaver was minted into coin or profit. 



In the old days the price of beaver ran from a few shillings to 

 32 shillings a pelt; but with 100,000 to 500,000 beaver peltries a 

 year coming out by way of the St. Lawrence and Hudson Bay, and 

 with money of three times greater purchasing value a century 

 and two centuries ago than it has to-day — that yearly crop of 

 beaver pelts was a veritable gold mine to the Hudson's Bay Com- 

 pany, who operated the fur realm of the Northern Sea, or to the 

 French colonial governors, who operated inland from the St. Law- 

 rence, north to Hudson Bay, west to the Mississippi and Rockies. 



In 1907, the yearly catch was placed at about 80,000 skins. 

 By 191 2, it had decreased to about 17,000 skins. This decrease 

 arose^from several facts. Settlement had cut off the beaver's wide 

 range and a closed season in at least two Canadian provinces had 

 stopped all hunting of beaver. Also the whim of fashion had shifted 

 from beaver to mink and fox. Miraculously, thanks to game lovers 

 and faithful game wardens, beaver came back. It is in a healthy, 



