OABTOUIUiB— 0A8T011— OAHTOU FIUEU. 



445 



canuii "of Olivier"* being proposed some five years siibsoquently. Yet l)y 

 Ricimnition, Audubon and Uurhninii, Drnndt, Morgan and Ely, and otlicrn, 

 the later name hns been adopted in prff('r(!nce to the earlier one of Kuhl. 

 For the Old World Beaver, the original Linnu'Mn nanio^Arr hon been by some 

 rejected for the later one, furopaun, used by Owen. 



aEOORAPIIICAL DISrUIBI'TION. 



The Beaver family existed in North Ameriea as far south along the 

 Atlantic scttitoord as Georgia and Northern Klorida.f It also occurred 

 throughout the Gidf Slates nearly as far south os the Gulf coast,' and in Texas 

 to the Rio Ornnde. Its exact limit south of the Bio Graiulc; I have not i)een 

 able t«> determine ; but that ils range extended for some distance into Mexico 

 is well ascertained. The collccticm of tiic National Mus(;um contains s|)eci- 

 mens from Franklin County, Missi8si|)pi, the Lower Rio Grande, an<l Santa 

 Clara, California, atid Dr. Couest gives it as nn inhabitant of Arizona. It is 

 al)undant in A las Im, and in the interior extends to the liarrcn Grounds; its 

 northern limit being apparently coincident with the northern limit ol forests. 

 Its present range, however, is much less extended, very few being found east 

 of the Mississippi River south of the; Great Lakes, and it is far less numer- 

 ous everywhere than formerly. Some still remain in Northern Maine and 

 in the Adirondack region of New York, and ])robably some still survive thence 

 southward in the sparsely-settled districts to Alabama and Mississippi. A 

 recent article in "Fo.est and Stream" (vol. vi. No. 13. p. 197, Nov. 2, 187G) 

 stales that they are still abundant in portions of Virginia.^ Their former 



* Tliu uaino t'atlor auericaaut lit oiiivvrauHy nttributud to F. Ciivier, but I am uuiiblo to Hud it au.v- 

 whcro uied in hla writiiita. In his " Hint. Nat. drs Mammifdrea", b« naeii the coiumuu uame only, — "Lc 

 Ciuhir da CaiuHia ",— yet this work In osnaUy cited u the origin of the §peolSa Dame " aaurieamM " as 

 appliod to the Auierioan Beaver. 



t Bartram, TrsvelH, p. 381. 



I Proo. Acad. Nat. Hct. Philad., 1667, p. 1:15 ; Am. Nat p. SttS. 



$The aboTo-oited article mentlouii particularly Dlnwiuaie, Nottoway, BmuBWick, Cnmborland, 

 and Onienvllle Cunntles, where it aayi beavor-trappiHi; has of late been again profitably pursued. " For 

 instance," say* tbia aoooaot, ' - there is the veteran trnp-maker, Mr. Newbouae, who made bis headquarters 

 in arei'DVJlIc County last winter; ho realized soiue |!XIO by his ezpeditlnn, besides srllluff several hundred 

 dollars^ worth of steel traps. And two of our subscribers ffom Connecticut, and others from Central Now 

 York, went down fo Bmnswick and Nottoway, and wlicu they bad harvested their packs of pelts and 

 were reatly to leave, tanght the native young ' chinoopins' and negroes to set (raps, so that they, too, 

 might add to their scanty earnings. More than one small farmer has had occasion to bless the strangers 



who came among them and showed them how to catch ftar. Besides pnlting money into their 



own purse, the trapper in Virginia will do the residents a great service by killing of the ' vermin ' that 

 destroy their orons, .ind thereby save as well as earn. Wo have onrselves seen acres of corn totally 

 destroyed by the Bavers down there, and we know that the havoc they make with f.be grain causes 

 a serioos loss to needy and straggling people." This advertisement of the abundance of the Beavers in 

 Virginia will doubtless resnlt in their rapid numerical decrease, if not speedy total extirpation, through 

 I'xcessivo (icrsecntlon, unless the authorities of Virginiii should have the wisdom to interpose legal pto- 

 luctliin fur th'> otherwiKo doomed animals. 



