THE BEAVER. 35 



before the time of Howel Dha, its numbers 

 would be progressively diminished, and that very 

 considerably. There still remained, however, ex- 

 tensive wastes in Howel's time, for it was among 

 the laws of that prince that every man was entitled 

 to so much land of that kind as he should bring into 

 cultivation. We cannot imagine, therefore, that the 

 Beaver was unable to find a secure retreat among 

 the valleys of these barren mountains, the hills of 

 Snowdon.* 



Howel Dha died in the year 948 ; the travels 

 of Giraldus de Barri or, as he is generally 

 styled, Giraldus Cambrensis did not take place 

 till about two hundred and fifty years after- 

 wards ; it cannot, therefore, excite surprise that the 

 Beaver had then become scarce and local, since 

 we have seen the value attached to its skin, and 

 established by law between two and three centuries 

 before that time. 



In his quaint account of the journey he made 

 through Wales in 1188, in company with Baldwin, 

 Archbishop of Canterbury (who afterwards fell before 

 Acre in the train of Richard Cceur de Lion), Giraldus 

 tells us that the Beaver was found in the river Teivi 

 in Cardiganshire, and gives a curious account of its 

 habits, apparently derived in some part from his own 

 observation, t 



Harrison, in his description of England prefixed to 

 Holinshed's "Chronicles," remarks: "For to saie 



* Donovan, " British Quadrupeds." 

 t " Itinerary," ed. Hoare, vol. ii. p. 49. 



