236 THE ZOOLOGIST. 
persuaded had been brought in by a Beaver for food! He 
seemed anxious to shoot them on account of the amount of wood 
they destroy, although all the wood being on the opposite bank of 
the beck, and therefore not on his land, that could not much 
matter to him. I did my best to impress him with the idea of 
their rarity and interest, but failed to enlist his sympathies. 
On the opposite side plenty of their work might be seen; dozens 
of trees cut down over some width of ground, and plenty of “ runs” 
up the bank. I found a birch tree thirty-six inches in circum- 
ference cut down by them. The actual cut was about eighteen 
inches long, the bark being taken off for over two feet. Another 
tree which they had cut down was twenty-nine inches in circum- 
ference, and a third twenty-eight inches. 
The Beaver or Beavers, it seems, came here in the summer 
of 1878, probably (the farmer told me) in June or July, and 
appear to have migrated from a place (‘T ), about twenty- 
four English miles as the crow flies, where, I was told, on 
what I believe to be unquestionable authority, a colony still 
exists, but I could learn nothing about its numbers, and had 
not time to go there to see for myself. I have also heard 
of the probable existence of a fourth colony in Norway (S ), 
and I hope and believe it is not unlikely that another small 
colony or two may yet exist in that country, and also perhaps 
in Sweden. 
That this animal, however, is very rare is_ sufficiently 
proved by the fact that the skeleton is a desideratum, I 
believe, in all the Scandinavian Museums,—I think Lund has 
an imperfect example,—although they all have old stuffed 
skins, in each instance, I think, from S , the place here 
first mentioned. 
