BEAVERS AND THEIR WAYS. 283 
less than a century afterwards the animal was nearly extermi- 
nated in the country south of the St. Lawrence and the Great 
Lakes. 
The French traders in 1748 imported into Rochelle 127,080 
Beaver skins, and the British Hudson’s Bay Company sold 
26,750 skins the same year. In less than fifty years later, when 
Canada had become a British possession, the trade in Beaver 
skins seems to have reached its maximum, and to have been 
maintained with only a slight decline till the commencement of 
the present century. In 1788 upwards of 170,000 Beaver skins 
were exported from Canada, and Quebec alone in 1808 supplied 
this country with 126,927, which, at the estimated average price 
of 18s. 9d. per skin, would produce no less a sum than £118,944. 
The result of the continuance of such wholesale destruction may 
well be imagined. No wonder that in some places the animal 
became exterminated. and in others comparatively scarce.* 
The additional persecution to which it was subjected, more 
particularly in Europe, for the sake of its flesh as food, and for 
the peculiar secretion known as castoreum, which was used 
medicinally, contributed still further to hasten its extermination 
in many places where it was once common. ‘The convenient 
medieval creed which converted the amphibious rodent into a 
suitable Lenten dish when flesh was forbidden no doubt added to 
the zeal with which the Beaver-hunt was pursued. It is asserted 
by ancient writers that only the tail sufficiently resembled fish 
to allow of its being eaten on fast-days; but certain modern 
authorities claim that the entire animal was maigre. On this 
point opinions differ.+ 
* After the substitution of silk for fur in the manufacture of hats, the 
value of Beaver pelts greatly declined; thus affording a respite to this perse- 
cuted animal, under the effects of which it is now increasing in certain 
localities. This is particularly the case on the Upper Missouri, and in the 
great forests around Lake Superior; but it is not at all probable that they 
will ever recover in any locality their former numbers. In 1862 Beaver pelts 
were worth at Fort Benton, on the Upper Missouri, one dollar and a quarter 
per pound, against seven and eight dollars per pound fifty years ago. They 
are now worth two dollars per pound on the south shore of Lake Superior. 
An ordinary pelt weighs from a pound and a half to a pound and three- 
quarters.—Morgan, ‘American Beaver,’ p. 228. 
+ See Dunoyer de Noirmont, ‘ Histoire de la Chasse en France,’ vol. ii., 
pp. 118, 114. Rolland, ‘ Faune Populaire de la France,’ p. 68. 
