EARLY NOTICES OF THE BEAVER. 



hefyr.^ It had its name heofer, or lefer, among our Anglo-Saxon 

 ancestors also, centuries before the European discovery of this con- 

 tinent ; and a designation more or less closely resembling this, is 

 found in the classic Latin, the Sclavonic, the Lithuanic, the Scandi- 

 navian, and Grermanic, and in the Romance Languages. The solitary 

 exception to this uniformity of name appears to be the Greek xo^a-Twp ; 

 but the reference to it, and to the special object of the hunter's 

 chase, in the Fable of the Beaver, ascribed to ^sop, points to the 

 recognition of some of its most highly esteemed virfcaes at a period of 

 remote antiquity. 



Sir Thomas Browne in bis " Enquiries into Vulgar Errors," discuss- 

 es the Grreek etymology, along with the popular idea involved in the 

 Apologue of iEsop, and he remarks of it as " a tenet very ancient. 

 For the same we find in the hieroglyphics of the Egyptians. The 

 same is touched by Aristotle in his Ethics ; but seriously delivered 

 by .^lian, Pliny, and Solinus ; the same we meet with in Juvenal : 



imitatus castora, qui se 



Emnucbum ipse facit, cupiens evadere damno 

 Testiculorum, adeo medieatum intelligit iaguen. 



It hath been propagated by emblems ; and some have been so bad 

 grammarians as to be deceived by the name, deriving castor a cas- 

 trando ; whereas the proper Latin word is fiber, and castor but bor- 

 rowed from the Grreek, so called quasi yasw^, that is animal ventrico- 

 6um, from his swaggy and prominent belly." 



The discovery of America with its prolific beaver-dams only mul- 

 tiplied the means for meeting demands already partially supplied 

 by the resources of the old world ; nor is the use of the beaver as a 

 heraldic bearing, a novelty of American or Canadian origin. 



Beverley, or Before-leag, i. e. beaver place, is the ancient Anglo- 

 Saxon designation of the capital of the East Riding of York ; situated 

 in a country abounding with mere and forest in olden time, before the 

 beaver colonists of Befor-leag were transferred from their dams to the 

 borough arms. The oldest armorial bearings of Beverley emblazon 

 Saint John of Beverley, seated on the fridstol, and trampling on the 

 ancient emblem of the town : the beaver. The present seal of the 

 corporation is : Argent, three waves, sable ; On a chief, sable, a 

 beaver statant regardant, argent. 



The ancient history, and present distribution of the beaver 



• Aacient Laws of Wales, published by the Record Commissioners. B. XIV. iii. 16; iv. 6- 



