THE BEAVER 669 



Terminology : — The English name of this animal has always been 

 the " Beaver," the spelling of the word showing, as usual, considerable 

 variation at different periods. The New English Dictionary mentions 

 "beofor" " befor" " bj/for," " befer," " beuer," " bever'' " bevere," " bevyr" 

 " beauer," and " beavor " as forerunners of the current form. Of these 

 "beofor" and "be/or'' are the earliest, and appear in .(Elfric's Vocabulary 

 {c. 1000 A.D.) as the translation of the 'L.^.'dxi fiber. 



Local names: — (Non-Celtic) — " Spattletail " may have been an 

 ancient local name for the Beaver; it is given as the translation of 

 Llostlydan y befyr, "the Spattletail or Beaver," mentioned in the 

 Anomalous Laws of Wales {Laws and Instil, of Wales, II., bk. xiv., 592 ; 

 and Stubbs, Lane. Nat., 1910, 129). But in view of the fact that this 

 name is apparently quite unknown to the makers of dictionaries, it 

 seems more probable that the word was coined comparatively recently 

 to serve as an apt translation of the Celtic llostlydan discussed below. 



(Celtic) : — Welsh — Llostlydan " the broad-tail ": llostlydan or Castor 

 occurs in the Leges Walliccs or Laws of Howel Dda (book iii., 

 ss. II, 12), dating from the tenth century; afangc ox avanc (discussed 

 below under History). 

 Cornish : — befer. 



Scotch Gaelic: — Leas-leatkah (Highland Society's Diet.), dobhran 

 kas-leathan (Shaw, Gael. Diet., 1780), leas-leathain (Robertson). 



The Welsh and Scottish Gaelic names cited above are descriptive, 

 and there can be little or no doubt that they were applied to the 

 Beaver. Host or leas, with the Old Irish loss, signifies "tail," and 

 llydan or leathan = "broad," hence llostlydan means "broad-tail." 

 Dobhran-chu signifies " water-dog," or Otter, and therefore the com- 

 bination dobhran leas -leathan = \hs. "broad-tailed Otter," or Beaver. 



The similarity of the Welsh and Scotch names is of course striking, 

 but a good deal of doubt exists as to the status of leas-leathan in the 

 Highland tongue. The Gaels could have had no personal knowledge 

 of the Beaver in Ireland, and it is suggested by Robertson that on their 

 arrival in Scotland they " borrowed a name from the native Pictish 

 inhabitants." For a full discussion of this matter the reader may be 

 referred to C. H. Alston's Wild Life in the West Highlands, 34. From 

 what is stated below with regard to the etymology of the word 

 " beaver," it is probable that the original and general Celtic name for 

 the animal was not a descriptive term, like llostlydan, but a variant of 

 the Old Aryan bebhrus ; and thus one can account for the use of befyr 

 in the Anomalous Laws of Wales, and for the presence of befer in 

 Cornish without supposing that these words crept into Celtic vocabu- 

 laries by contact with Anglo-Saxons. " Beaver" was probably common 

 to the languages of both races long before they met on British soil. 

 History and past distribution : — The range of the Beaver in the 

 VOL. II. 2 U 2 



