280 THE ZOOLOGIST. 
tributaries, the Oger, Perse, and Erst, in the south. Fischer in 
in his ‘ Versuch einer Naturgeschichte Livlands,’ 1871, states 
that in 1724 the colonies of Beavers there built dams of great 
height, and thereby greatly increased the inundations. 
That the Beaver was formerly well known in those parts is 
shown by the number of places in Lettish Livonia that are 
named after it; for instance, the Beaver-beck and Beaver-court 
Estates; Beaver birch wood, Beaver brook, and Beaver hill. 
Until the end of the last century the inhabitants of Sedde 
supplied castoreum to the druggists at Fellin, and so late as 1830 
it was obtained from Walk, in the Aa district. But it would 
seem from the researches made by Herr von Loewis, who has 
published a very interesting article on the extinction of the 
Beaver in Livonia,* that since the year 1818 the Beaver has 
frequented only the Middle Aa. Solitary individuals, he says, 
may have strayed into other parts; but this is doubtful, since 
the Aa district of Walk is the only place where there is positive 
evidence of their occurrence. 
In 1832, after an interval of two years, the druggists at 
Walk, received the last pair of “‘castorum sacs” from indigenous 
Beavers. They weighed 11 ozs., and realised 15 roubles, or 
45 shillings per loth, i.e., half an ounce, in other words, £4 10s. 
per ounce. The owner had obtained them from a postilion at 
Stackeln, who had that year trapped the Beavers from which 
they were taken. For some years these were believed to be the 
last of their race in Livonia, until in the autumn of 1840, on the 
estate of Neuhof, in the upper reaches of the Aa, east of Walk, a 
single Beaver was tracked and hunted, but without success. 
At length in the summer of 1841, on the borders of the Crown 
lands of Aa-hof, this sole surviving Beaver was shot by a game- 
keeper named Neppert. It was veritably the last of its race, for 
since then diligent enquiry has revealed no traces of any Beavers 
in Livonia. 
In Srperia, according to Wylie (Russian Military Pharma- 
copeeia), the Beaver was at one time as common as it was in 
Russia; and in Western Siberia used to flourish on the Bobrofka, 
one of the affluents of the Irtysh. It is now, however, extinct 
* ‘Der Zoologische Garten,’ 1878, pp. 353—3857, translated in ‘ The 
Zoologist,’ 1880, pp. 215—217, 
