CHAPTER II. 
DESTRUCTION OF THE BEAVER For THEIR Fur Cov- 
ERING — PrimitivE MretTHops oF SLAUGHTER 
BY INDIANS AS TOLD BY CAPTAIN CARVER. 
ieee Beavers were killed occasionally for food 
and clothing by the primitive red people be- 
fore the English settlements at Jamestown or Plymouth 
Rock, yet their great numbers on every considerable 
stream of water tributary to the Atlantic coast made it 
evident as we now understand the habits of these ani- 
mals they were on the increase until confronted with a 
‘new and relentless.enemy in the bearded race, from 
whom neither mercy or rest would be shown untii the 
exterminating hand had glutted to its full. 
It was near one hundred years after the Jamestown 
colony was located before the systematic destruction of 
the American beavers commenced. The finest grade 
of furred beavers’ was found along the St. Laurence 
‘River and its tributaries, and this region was in posses- 
sion of the French. These people scattered all along 
that artery of traffic and trade, soon found the value of 
a well furred beaver skin from the price set upon it and 
the general demand for its importation by the Eurcpean 
nobility. Thus the beavers habits were studied by the 
French settlers that they could more easily destroy 
them, and the neighboring Indians were also induced 
to join in the hunt. In this way hundreds of thousands 
of these industrious and harmless animals were ruth- 
