158 DELIBERATE DESTRUCTION OF ANIMAL LIFE 



evidence is equally clear, for in two prehistoric settlements 

 in Ayrshire a shell-mound at Ardrossan and a cave shelter 

 at Cleaves Cove, Dairy the bones of the Beaver have 

 been discovered amongst the miscellaneous contents of the 

 kitchen-middens. In historical times there are few references 

 to its presence, yet we cannot but believe that it existed in 

 the less frequented rivers almost till the middle ages. There 

 are Gaelic traditions telling of the presence of Dobhran- 

 losleathan the Broad-tailed Otter in many parts of the 

 Highlands, and it is said to have been plentiful at one time 

 in the district of Lochaber in Inverness-shire. 



In the twelfth century, Giraldus Cambrensis, who found 

 Beavers in Wales, recorded that he had been informed that 

 they still existed in one river in Scotland, and in the early 

 half of the same century " Beveris " are included in a list of 

 animals whose skins were subject to export duty in the 

 reign of David I (1084-1153). I have already quoted 

 passages in which Boece mentions it as occurring in Loch 

 Ness (p. 155), and though it is possible, as has been suggested, 

 that Boece was recording only some vague tradition that 

 had reached his ears, yet many of his statements, it seems 

 to me, have met with unnecessary scepticism, and I see no 

 reason why the Beaver may not have lingered on in the 

 wilds of Inverness-shire even to the sixteenth century, since 

 many others of our decadent creatures found there a safe 

 retreat. If so, it could not long have survived the date of 

 Boece's record ; and in the light of its history here as in 

 other countries, it is safe to attribute, its extermination to 

 the destructiveness of man. I know no case which illustrates 

 more clearly how a single whim of fashion can affect the 

 creatures of a land even far distant, than the history of the 

 Beavers of North America (Castor canadensis]. So long as 

 beaver fur was used on a large scale for the making of hats, 

 the Beaver was so keenly hunted that it was threatened 

 with extinction, but the invention of the silk hat, in ousting 

 the 'beaver,' resulted in an immediate increase in the 

 numbers of American Beavers, and in their reappearance 

 in places they had long forsaken. 



