96 



MAMMALIA— ORDER V.—RQDENTIA. 



Tlie Beavers. ■ 

 Family 

 Castoridce, 



Fig. 57. — Bea-Ver (Castor fiber). 



by the beavers (Castor), easily distinguished by the broad, flattened, and 

 scaly tail. The skull is massively made and devoid of postorbital processes, 

 vfith the angle of the lower jaw rounded ; the cheek teeth 

 do not develop roots, and have their crowns marked with 

 re-entering folds of enamel ; the premolars are limited to a 

 single pair in each jaw ; and the hind-feet are webbed. 

 Beavers, which are the largest Rodents in the Northern 

 Hemisphere, and are thoroughly aquatic in their habits, are confined to cer- 

 tain parts of that hemisphere, being found only in Europe, Northern Asia, 

 and North America. The actual extent of their range in the Old "World 

 is not so clearly defined as could be wished. There is, however, ample 



evidence that this range originally 

 -' -T extended from the British Islands 

 ' -i* 'S'*' ™ *^® west, to France, and perhaps 

 Kf"'*'' Italy, Spain, and Greece, in the 

 south, thence eastward to Asia 

 Minor, and possibly Persia, and to 

 the north-eastward as far as the 

 Yenesei and Lena in Siberia, and 

 thence to Amur, Scandinavia, and 

 Russia ; but there does not appear 

 to be any good evidence as to the 

 eastern limits of beavers in the 

 direction of Northern China, al- 

 though it may not be improbable 

 that in this region these animals 

 only inhabited the rivers flowing northwards into the Caspian Sea and the 

 Arctic Ocean. On the Continent, beavers were finally exterminated in Holland 

 in 1825. In France a number of names, such as Bievre, Beuvron, and Beu- 

 vray, or Beuvry, as well as the ancient Bibrax and Bibracte, point to the 

 originally wide distribution of beavers. Fossil remains of these animals occur 

 in many places, such as Abbeville, in the valley of the Somme, the neigh- 

 bourhoods of Paris and Clermont, and the cavern of Lunel-Viel, in Herault. 

 The Rhone and its tributaries, especially the Garden and the Cese, appear to 

 have been the great stronghold of these creatures within the historic period. 

 Even, however, in the last century they had become exceedingly rare, owing 

 to the incessant persecution to which they had been subjected. Still, they 

 have been met with at intervals even up to the present day. Thus Gervais 

 records the capture of a specimen in 1846, close to the port of Avignon, and 

 mentions having seen two others near Aries. The floods of 1840 doubtless 

 led to the destruction of a considerable number, so that after this date they 

 were much more rare than formerly. The circumstance that the monks of a 

 monastery on the right bank of the Rhone at Yilleneuve-les- Avignon in- 

 cluded beavers among their plats maigres, indicates that in earlier days they 

 were probably abundant. M. St. Hilaire, in the BiAletin de la Society 

 d'Acdimatatiun for 1888, records the capture of three specimens during that 

 year in the Rhone, and a recent writer concludes that from 25 to 30 beavers 

 are still annually killed in that river and its tributaries. There does not 

 appear to be evidence that tliese animals linger in any other of the French 

 rivers. 



It is mentioned in some of the old writers that beavers occur rarely in 

 Italy, Spain, and Greece, but it is difficult to find on what evidence these 



