EARLY {iTOTtCKS Of THE BEAVEK. 861, 



throtigliout Europe and in Asia Minor, hare recently been illustrated 

 with great research and ability, in a paper commiinieated by Dr. 

 Charles Wilson to the Edinburgh Philosophical Journal j in which 

 also he treats of its ancient and modern relations to pharmacology 

 and medicine^ in the use of the Castoreum** 



In referring to the origin of the names, both of localities and indi- 

 viduals, naturally traceable to the presence of the beaver he remarks : 

 " Biberach or Biberbach, in Suabia, Merian writes, had its designa- 

 tion from the beavers which had their colonies in a brook or stream 

 in its vicinity. This town was an old Reichs-stadt, and, like our 

 Beverley, had long carried the beaver in its armorial insignia. The 

 animal we are told, was first borne azure, with a crown gules, on a 

 field argent s but, in 1487, in consideraticm of an important service 

 rendered to the Archduke Maximilian, afterwards the Emperor 

 Maximilian I., the citizens acquired the right to have the field azure, 

 and the beaver and crown or : a guerdon which we must suppose 

 them to have considered adequate, as they obtained it on petition. 

 There is besides a Bieberach on the Kinzig, a tributary of the Ehine j 

 and on the Ehine itself we have Biebrich, probably the analogue of 

 our Beferige, whence our patronymic Beveridge.^^ 



The ingenious architecture and the social and provident habits of the 

 beaver supply very satisfactory reasons for its selection from among 

 the North American fauna, as the fittest for taking its place among 

 the ordinaries or charges of our provincial escutcheon ; but this was 

 probably less thought of than its great importance in the early trade 

 of Canada, and the British American Colonies. 



Nevertheless, though the beaver wool of the fashionable hats, ta 

 which it gave name, is scarcely less exclusively associated with the 

 early exports of the New World than its tobacco, we have good proof 

 of the use of the beaver's fur for such a purpose, and of a regular 

 European traffic in beaver skins, long prior to the discovery of 

 America, in the fifteenth century. The beaver skin appears indeed 

 to have been from ancient times a royal fur, and her Majesty is still 

 entitled, by royal prerogative, to the skin of the martin, the beaver, 

 and the ermine, though the latter alone has maintained its royal 

 associations. On the continent, the use of the beaver's skin appears 

 to be traceable in the middle of the 14th century j and in " the Tes- 



* Edinburgh New Philosophical Journal, Vol. VIII. 



