io8 Speight: Beavers in Yorkshire. 



An attack of enteric fever while at Dewsbury had pulled him 

 down much, but he brightened up considerably on retiring to 

 live at Ilkley. His own illness was a painful one, of long- dura- 

 tion, which, on the 29th of July 1902, came to an end, at 

 Ilkley. He was buried at Huddersfield Cemetery, when the 

 Yorkshire Naturalists' Union was officially represented, and the 

 wreath deposited on his grave in the Union's name was a crypto- 

 gamic one, being of Reindeer Moss, most appropriately fitted to 

 pay the last tribute of respect from his scientific colleagues to a 

 departed student of cryptogamia. R. 



BEAVERS IN YORKSHIRE. 



HARRY SPEIGHT. 



In Messrs. Clarke and Roebuck's useful monograph on 

 'The Vertebrate Fauna of Yorkshire' (1881) it is stated that 

 the only grounds for surmising that the European beaver ever 

 inhabited Yorkshire are afforded by place-names, such as 

 Beverley, in the East Riding ; Beaverholes and Beaverdike, in 

 the Forest of Knaresborough ; and Beevor Hill or Beverhole, 

 near Barnsley, in the West Riding. But there is, I understand, 

 a document in the possession of the Corporation of Beverley 

 which proves the actual existence of the animal in that neigh- 

 bourhood in the twelfth or thirteenth century, and it is 

 a significant fact that the ancient chain of the Mayor of 

 Beverley — a relic of the fourteenth century — consists of eagles 

 (emblem of St. John the Evangelist, to whom the church was 

 dedicated) and beavers. The situation of the place by open 

 water meadows, as the name implies, was well suited for the 

 habits of the beaver, and there are many other spots, especially 

 in the low-lying districts of Holderness, where one might expect 

 this aquatic creature found a solitary existence late in historic 

 times. No doubt it was of the same family as still exists in 

 Scandinavia and Northern Europe, cut off in early ages by the 

 encroachments of the North Sea. 



The names quoted by Messrs. Clarke and Roebuck favour 

 a late Eng-lish survival, and I have also thought that the 

 extensive and retired ' Marshes ' at Bolton Percy a very 

 likely spot where the creature might have survived even to 

 a later period than in the more inhabited district of Beverley. 

 In searching the old Parish Accounts at Bolton Percy a year 



Naturalist, 



