CLASS I. MAMMALIA: ORDER 1. RODENTIA 



38^ 



and West at the present time, their peltry being chiefly collected by the agents of the Hudson's 

 Bay Company. 



In Europe, the beaver-skin was used for clothing as far back as the age of Herodotus. The 

 existence of the beaver in England is indicated as early as the time of Alfred the Great, who speaks 

 in his writings of its curious building instincts. In 1638, Charles I. issued a proclamation pro- 

 hibiting the use of any materials except beaver-stuff or beaver-wool in the manufacture of hats, 

 and forbidding the making of the hats called demi-castors, unless for exportation. This procla- 

 mation was an almost exterminating death-warrant to the beavers in the American Colonies. 

 They were speedily swept away from the more southern ones, and the traffic became for the most 

 part confined to Canada and Hudson's Bay. From this time the imports into Europe appear to 

 have varied from 100,000 to 150,000 skins a year. London became the great market for these 

 furs, and the average importations from 1783 to 1840 were about 140,000. The annual con- 

 sumption of the whole world probably did not exceed 150,000.* 



* Statistics of t:;e Fir Trade. — Since the above was written, we have taken some pains to collect facts on this 

 subject, and by the kindness of one of the leading American houses in New York connected with this business, with 

 other opportunities, we are able to oS'er the following interesting facts: 



IMPORTATION OF FURS OF THE HUDSON'S BAY COMPANY IN 185S, AND OFFERED FOR SALE 



IN LONDON IN JANUARY AND MARCH, 1859. 



This does not embrace the Columbia River importation, which includes about 18,000 beaver-skins annually; and 

 of the other kinds, about fifteen per cent, on the preceding numbers. 



On the 26th of January, 1859, C. M. Lampson &, Co., an American house in London, offered for sale 10,000 beaver- 

 skins and 350,000 musquash skins, and in March, the following : 



200,000 Raccoon-skins. 5,000 Mink-skins. 10,000 Red Fox-skins. 



200 Cross and Silver Fox-skins. 2,000 Martin-skins. 1,000 Otter-skins. 



1,000 Lynx-skins. 1,000 Bear-skins. 700 Fisher-skins. 



1,000 Skunk-skins. 10,000 Opossum-skins. 



This is a half-yearly sale, so that the numbers must be doubled. These tables furnish the elements of a calculation 

 of the furs of the above kinds, annually imported into London from America, for these two concerns engross the 

 entire trade. To these must be added the furs retained in the United States for consumption there. The amount 

 of the European and Asiatic furs of these kinds is trifling in comparison with the preceding amounts. 



The whole number of beaver-skins annually produced can thus be pretty accurately ascertained. The importation 

 of the Hudson's Bay Company alone, for 1S5S, is 72,241 skins ; for Columbia River, 18,000 ; Lampson & Co. sell 20,000 ; 

 retained for use in the United States, 5,000 ; and the Russian America skins sent to the United States and used there, 

 4,000. Thus we have 119,241 beaver-skins as the product of North America for the year 1858. This exceeds the 

 average; the product throughout the world may be one hundred thousand skins annually. Owing to the substitu- 

 tion, for the manufacture of hats, of silk and Nutria fur — the skins of this animal selling at forty cents the pound, (see 

 page 408,) — the demand for beaver has greatly diminished within the last ten years, and the present annual product 

 is but about two-thirds what it was formerly. The price was §7 a pound in 1S32, in 1844 $4 50; it is now $1 25. 

 This reduction of value has abated the zeal with which these animals have been pursued, and it is a curious fact that 

 in some localities, especially in British America, they are actually on the increase. Within the United States, 

 the Indians, having ceded their lands to the government, and receiving annual stipends from the same, have 

 greatly relaxed their energy and enterprise in hunting and trapping; but the extending settlements of the whites 

 have even more than supplied their place, as the white man pursues wild animals from the spirit of the chase, with- 

 out exclusive regard to the money profits they may yield. The beaver territory is much more contracted than it was. 

 (Twenty years ago Kansas and Nebraska produced a considerable amount of beavers ; at present their yield is 

 ■ rifling. In 1830 the Lake Superior Indians annually procured furs to the value of $150,000 ; now the annual product 

 >f the same region is not more than one-fifth of that value. All things considered, we think the beaver at the pres- 

 ent time is actually diminishing, though, as we have said, in certain places it may be on the increase. It must 

 *e remembered that about 100,000 are annually killed, almost wholly in North America, and that in a territory very 

 'uuch contracted from what it was half a century ago, when the annual product was 150, O^O. 

 The musquash-skins are chiefly supplied from the U. S. ; Lampson & Co.'s sales are about a million a year. 



