70 EXTINCT AND VANISHING MAMMALS 



VANCOUVER ISLAND BEAVER 



CASTOR CANADENSIS LEUCODONTA Gray 



Castor canadensis leucodonta Gray, Ann. Mag. Nat. Hist., ser. 4, vol. 4, p. 293, Oct. 



1869 (Vancouver Island, British Columbia). 

 FIGS.: Taylor, 1916, p. 450, fig. J, a; p. 451, fig. K, a; p. 452, fig. L, a (views of skull). 



Dr. W. P. Taylor (1916) has briefly summarized some of the 

 characters that he believes distinguish the Vancouver beaver. 

 Externally it closely resembles typical C. canadensis from New 

 Brunswick in color above, but the under side is "about hair 

 brown in leucodonta, near bone brown, dark grayish brown, 

 dark vinaceous-drab or natal brown in canadensis. " Cranially, 

 the external outline of the nasals is different, "tending to be 

 more parallel in leucodonta than in canadensis, in which there 

 is a dilation in the outline anteriorly; foramen magnum slightly 

 broader . . . ; hamular processes . . . definitely 

 broader bladed. " There are other slight cranial differences 

 between this and neighboring races. 



In the middle of the last century beavers were common on 

 Vancouver Island, to which this race is now regarded as re- 

 stricted. Robert Brown (in Green, A. H., 1869), who collected 

 the original specimens for the British Museum, spoke of them 

 near Victoria, and especially in the interior, where "they are 

 almost everywhere abundant and on the increase. In a swampy 

 lake near the mouth of the Cowichan Lake we found many; 

 and an extensive swamp near the entrance of the Puntledge 

 Lake was a great stronghold ... In the spring of 1866, 

 when crossing the island from Fort Rupert to the head of 

 Quatseeno Sound with some Indians, a great portion of our 

 route lay among these beaver ponds and dams. All through 

 this district beavers swarm. " 



Swarth (1912) has presented some measurements and cranial 

 dimensions from a series of this beaver trapped in 1910 on 

 Vancouver Island. The external appearance, he says, differs 

 from that of beavers from southeastern Alaska principally in 

 slightly paler color. He found that "as a result of a number 

 of years of protection beavers have multiplied on Vancouver 

 Island so as to be really abundant in many places . . . 

 There was a small colony at a point near Errington, but we 

 found them in far greater numbers at Beaver Creek, near 

 Alberni . . . There was old beaver work along the streams 



