196 NATURAL HISTORY ESSAYS 



lean being dark-coloured, and the fat oily and 

 nauseating. Captain Cartwright has, however, 

 termed the beaver " the most delicious eating of any 

 animal in the known world," so that there is no 

 accounting for tastes ! 



The hearty appreciation of the European beaver 

 resulting in continual persecution, has rendered this 

 once wide-spread animal a mere shadow in point of 

 numbers ; it is already practically extinct, lingering 

 as a wild animal in the Rhone Valley and (under 

 protection) on the lower Danube and in Norway. 1 

 Formerly large colonies existed on the Moselle, the 

 Maas, and the Lippe rivers; in the Elbe basin ; on 

 the Upper Danube and its tributary the Amper ; 

 and in Livonia. The last Dutch beaver was killed 

 in 1825; the last Laplander about 1830; the last 

 Livonian in 1841 ; in fact the history of this 

 unfortunate species seems to be nothing else but a 

 record of slaughter, and hardly anything has been 

 observed of its habits. On the other hand, full 

 accounts of the life of the American species are 

 accessible ; its hut-building and dyke-making ; its 

 food tree bark and water lilies ; its gregarious 

 disposition, and nocturnal habits. So little were the 

 habits of the European species known that Buffon 

 and Cuvier even suggested that it never constructed 

 huts ; nor would it seem wonderful that so 



1. A Norwegian specimen from Arendal, presented by Professor 

 Collett in 1897, is in the National Collection. 



