BEAVERS AND THEIR WAYS. 281 
there, but continues to survive on the rivulet Pelyin, from whence 
in 1876 M. Poliakoff procured five skins from an ostyack on the 
Obi, and commissioned a hunter to obtain some perfect specimens 
there for the Museum of the St. Petersburg Academy.* In 
Eastern Siberia, according to one of the most recent travellers 
who has given any account of the fauna of that country, Mr. 
Henry Seebohm, the Beaver has been extinct on the Yenesay for 
many years.t 
The habitat of Taz American Braver is an unusually wide 
one, not surpassed by that of any other animal, including even 
the Deer and the Fox. It has been found from the confines of 
the Arctic Sea on the north, to the Gulf of Mexico, the Rio 
Grande, and the Gila rivers on the south, and even southward 
of these ranges in Tamanlipas in Mexico, which is the southern- 
most point to which it has been definitely traced. Throughout 
all the intermediate area, from Hudson’s Bay and the Atlantic 
on the east to the Pacific on the west, it has been found generally 
distributed. 
Numbers were to be found in the thickly-wooded country 
around Hudson’s Bay, around the shores of Lake Superior, upon 
the head waters of the Missouri, and the Seskatchewan, and 
upon the tributaries of the Columbia. The regions bordering on 
the Yukon, on the upper part of Mackenzie River, on Frazer’s 
River, and on the Sacramento were also noted for Beavers. 
New England, New York, Pennsylvania, and the Canadas were 
less abundantly but very well supplied at the period of coloniza- 
tion. Southward towards the Gulf they were less numerous, and 
in the vast prairie area in the interior of the continent they 
were confined of course to the margins of the rivers. 
With the commencement of colonization their habitat began 
to contract. They have now practically disappeared from the 
United States east of the Rocky Mountains, except in the States 
of Michigan, Wisconsin, Minnesota, and Iowa; and in the 
territories of Nebraska, Dakota, Idaho, Montana, and Colorado. 
They are still occasionally seen in Maine, New York, and Virginia. 
In the Hudson’s Bay territory, and in some portions of the 
Canadas, and west of the mountains in Oregon, Washington, 
* The Zoologist,’ 1877, p. 172. 
+ Seebohm, ‘ Siberia in Asia,’ p. 43. 
ZOOLOGIST.—JULY, 1886. Y 
