BEAVER. 



173 



will suffice to point out that it differs from the North American 

 Beaver (C canadensis) by the greater length of the nasal bones 

 of the skull, which extend upwards beyond the line of the 

 anterior border of the sockets of the eyes. 



Distribution. — The Beaver was formerly distributed over the 

 greater part of Europe, and extending from the British Islands 

 through France, Germany, Austria, Russia, Poland, and Livonia, 

 to Lapland, and thence through the Scandinavian Peninsula, 

 but, through incessant persecution, it has been exterminated 

 from most of its ancient haunts, although solitary individuals, or 

 small colonies, are still met with in certain parts of the Continent. 

 It might have been supposed that, in the remote regions of the 

 north, the animal would still flourish in numbers, although such 

 appears not to be the case, the last known Lapland Beaver hav- 

 ing been killed previously to 1830. There is, however, still a 

 thriving colony in Norway. In Northern Russia the rivers 

 Dwina and Petchora, respectively discharging into the White 

 Sea and the Arctic Ocean, were the resort of Beavers as late as 

 1842, but there appear to be none left now. Formerly extend- 

 ing as far east as Amurland, in the basin of the Ob, in Western 

 Siberia, they are exterminated in the valley of the Irtish, 

 although they lingered in the tributary of the Ob, known as 

 the Pelyin, up to 1876, From the Yenisei, in Eastern Siberia, 

 they have completely disappeared ; but information is required 

 with regard to the Lena. 



In the British Isles the Beaver has long since been as com- 

 pletely exterminated as the Wolf and the Bear, although evidence 

 of its former existence within the historic period is afforded 

 ;either by the names of places or documentary records or 

 tradition ; while the abundance of semi-fossilised remains attests 

 its existence in still earlier epochs. For most of this evidence 

 naturalists are indebted to the researches of Mr. J. E. Harting 



