NORTH AMERICA AND THE WEST INDIES 67 



believed to have extended to the Mississippi, perhaps as far 

 north as Iowa. In this State, according to J. A. Allen (1870a), 

 they had been nearly or quite exterminated in most of the 

 eastern and southern portions by 1870, although at that time 

 a few were reported still to exist on the South Raccoon River. 

 Kellogg (1939) has lately summarized its history in Tennessee, 

 where it was originally well distributed in former times and 

 apparently did not begin to show much depletion until after 

 the middle of the eighteenth century. About 1788 the salaries 

 of the county clerks and others were paid in beaver skins, 300 

 for the county clerk, 200 for the clerk of the House of Com- 

 mons, and three for members of the Assembly. The latest 

 records for beavers seem to be those of Rhoads (1896) for the 

 extreme western part of the State. He examined a beaver 

 house in the cypress swamp bordering Reelfoot Lake, Obion 

 County, about 1895 and was told that there were then about 

 20 beavers in that district. Another colony was reported to 

 him from Hay wood County. Beavers still exist in Alabama, 

 and according to A. H. Howell (1921) have held their own in 

 some localities remarkably well, even in settled farming regions. 

 He says that "apparently they are more numerous at present 

 [1920] in the central part of the State, in Montgomery and 

 Lowndes Counties, than in either the wild hill country of the 

 northern part or the big swamps of the south." Old residents 

 of Montgomery County assured him that although abundant 

 there in early times, they had entirely disappeared from the 

 region, but about 1908 reappeared, coming up from the lower 

 stretches of Catoma Creek. In Lowndes County, L. J. Gold- 

 man found beavers in numbers along Big Swamp Creek and in 

 Jones Lakes, where they do considerable damage to the corn 

 patches. They are little trapped for fur, although their meat 

 is much sought after. They now have protection either locally 

 by the planters or in general by State law, from March to 

 November. "In the northern part of the State beavers seem 

 almost to have been exterminated; they formerly occurred in 

 small numbers in the Tennessee River at Muscle Shoals, but 

 disappeared about 1895; they lived about the 'towheads' 

 (small islands) in the river and burrowed into the banks, but 

 did not build dams. A few were reported in 1916 in Big Wills 

 Creek, near Collinsville. They disappeared from Talladega 

 Creek, near Dean, about 1896." 



