FUR-BEARING MAMMALS 



307 



end to this " pelagic" sealing in the Behring Sea on the part of 

 other nations, but the matter being submitted to arbitration, it was 

 decided that, subject to certain restrictions, the practice should be 

 allowed to continue. The yield of the fur-seal industry of British 

 Columbia in 1900 was 35,523 skins (value $562,845), and in 1901 

 24,422 skins (value 366,330). 



FUR- YIELDING GNAWERS ( RODENTIA). Beaver, Chinchilla, 

 Musquash, Squirrel, and Rabbit are here of greatest importance. 



Fig. 1223. Musquash (Fiber zibethicus) 



The Beaver (Castor). The American Beaver (Castor Cana- 

 densis] is largely trapped in Canada for the sake of its fur, which 

 is greatly esteemed, though no longer used in the manufacture of 

 top-hats, silk having proved both cheaper and better for the pur- 

 pose. The animal has been slaughtered in so wholesale a manner 

 that beaver-fur is becoming increasingly rare and expensive. 



The European Beaver (C. fiber], once abundant, is now too 

 scarce to be of economic value. Regarding the value attached to 

 the skins of those which existed in Wales down to 1188, Beddard 

 (in The Cambridge Natural History], after stating that the species 

 was extinct in England before the historic period, remarks: " . . . 

 they were rare in the Principality for a hundred years or so before 



