84 Dr. Wilson's Noles on the 



the orthodoxy of the practice, that in Germany, and the 

 northern regions, great and religious persons "tempore 

 jejuniorum," eat the tail of the fish-like creature, as having 

 both the taste and colour of fish. Giraldus informs as further » 

 that beavers were then reported to exist also in Scotland, but 

 likewise only in a single river, and in scanty numbers.* 



Dr." Neill, who refers to Giraldus, takes an opportunity of 

 stating,t in allusion to this concluding observation, that no 

 mention of beavers occurs in any of the public records of 

 Scotland, now extant. To this, however, there is at least one 

 exception. In the Assisa Regis David de Tolloneis, cap. 

 ii., supposed to date towards the middle of the twelfth 

 century, but evidently founded on the English Act of Henry 

 I., the export duty is fixed, "of a tymmyr of skynnis of 

 toddis quhytredys martrikis cattis heveris sable firrettis or 

 swylk uthyr of ilk tymmyr at Pe outpassing iiij''-;^" If w^e 

 note here that the duty is one upon exportation, " ad exitum,'^ 

 or "outpassing," we can scarcely conclude otherwise than 

 that the beaver was then met with in the country, and ap- 

 parently even in considerable numbers, so that its fur was an 

 ordinarily recognised article of commerce, of native produce. 

 To judge, however, from the language of the Scottish render- 

 ing of the Latin original of the Assize of the first David^ 

 which we have here purposely adduced, we must regard its 

 regulations as having remained in force till a much later era ; 

 and probably till that of the second king of the name, or till 

 about the middle of the fourteenth century. But the animal 

 which was already reported as rare in the time of Giraldus 

 Cambrensis, yet which seems to have been held entitled to 

 continue as furnishing an article of impost more than two 

 centuries after, appears, in still another century, to have 

 shrunk into such narrowly limited numbers, that it was at 

 last no longer deemed necessary to retain for it a place in a 

 fiscal enactment. In 1424, at the first parliament of the first 

 James, the martin, polecat, fox, and other skins, are still 

 named as articles bearing an export duty, but the beaver is 

 omitted. § Yet, at even a later period, when we find Hector 



* Silvester Giraldus Cambrensis, Itinerarium Cambrije, seu laboriosse Baldvini 

 Cantuarensis Archiepiscopi per Walliam legationis accurata descriptio, lib. ii., 

 cap. 3. 



t Mem. of Wern. Nat. Hist. Society, vol. iii., p. 211. 



% Acts of Parliament of Scotland, vol. i., p. 303. The timiner still denotes 

 in -Sweden a bundle of forty skins. From a citation in Ducange (Gloss. Med. 

 and Inf. Latin. V. Timbrium), the timber in France, in the year 1351, con- 

 tained sixty skins. The term in this country appears to have usually denoted 

 the number of forty. 



\ Laws and Acts of Parliament of Scotland (1682), part i., p. 6. 



