274 THE ZOOLOGIST. 
Numerous remains of Beavers have been found in the peat- 
bogs of la Somme, where a few of these animals still lingered 
until a comparatively recent period. 
The Carlovingian Kings, in their great hunting establish- 
ments, maintained a certain number of beverarii, as they were 
termed, or Beaver hunters, employed to capture these animals 
for the sake of their fur, which was always held in high estima- 
tion. 
In the 18th century a few existed on the banks of the lower 
Rhone and its tributaries, especially the Gardon and the Cese. 
The inhabitants of that district declared constant war against 
them in consequence of the great damage they did to the willows 
and osiers, which were then the principal source of profit to the 
riparian landowners, and they were either shot or taken in 
snares. The rivers just mentioned must be regarded probably 
as among the last haunts of the Beaver in France. Chenu 
states that specimens have been procured near Arles, Beaucaire, 
Tarascon, and even Avignon, and still existed, he said, in such 
numbers as to elicit his surprise that some authors should have 
referred to it as extinct in France. Of two which F. Cuvier had 
alive, one was from the Danube, and the other from the Gardon, 
in Dauphiny. 
Some ten or twelve years ago there was a Beaver from the 
Gardon living in the Jardin des Plantes, Paris; and a few years 
before that (in 1856), another, which had been killed in the 
Département de Vaucluse, was forwarded to the Editor of the 
‘Journal des Chasseurs,’ who presented his readers with a figure 
of it. In the same Département, at the Chateau de Caderousse, 
may be seen some stuffed Beavers which were killed in that 
neighbourhood. 
In the latest work in which any mention is made of Beavers 
in France,* the author, the Marquis de Cherville, states that a 
few still exist on the banks of the Rhone and its affluents, 
particularly the Gardon ; and that some have been met with also 
in the marshes of Picardy. A Paris naturalist, M. Deyrolle, 
Laonnais ; Bewvron in Sologne, and Bewvronne in Brie; Bewvron in Auge, 
and St. James de Bewvron in Normandy; Bewvry, le Nord and Pas de 
Calais; Bewvray, near Autun, &e. 
* De Cheryille, ‘Les Quadrupedes de la Chasse. 8vo. Paris, 1885. 
pp- 178—177). 
