286 PAST AND FUTURE OF BRITISH MAMMALS 



Failing the rivers, there is another favourite haunt of 

 otters, which time can hardly destroy. This is among 

 the cliffs on the sea coast. They are quite at home in 

 salt water, and in Devonshire there are probably quite 

 as many sea otters as river otters. 



The most to be regretted of our lost animals is the 

 beaver. The records of its extinction are very meagre, 

 and there does not seem any reason why a few might 

 not have survived in forest areas, such as the Forest of 

 Dean, or those of Northern Scotland, to a later date 

 than that of Richard Coeur de Lion, when Giraldus 

 Cambrensis recorded their existence on the river Teifi. 

 Beavers lived on the river Kennet, near Newbury, for a 

 beaver's jaw was found there in the peat ; and on the 

 Severn there is a beaver island. But as the price of a 

 Welsh beaver's skin was fifteen times more than that of 

 otter's skin in 940 A.D., they must have been scarce 

 even at that date. It is interesting to know, from Sir 

 Edmund Loder's continued success with his beavers at 

 Leonardslee, that we can, if we like, re-establish them. 

 The Leonardslee beavers increase, and have continued 

 to do so for nine years. As they destroy much small 

 timber, no one who regards cost would encourage 

 them on a small estate or among valuable trees. But 

 the beavers have two ways of life, differing according to 

 the rivers on which they live, as may be seen in Northern 

 Norway. Shallow streams they dam ; and to make 



