THE BEAVER 



673 



The Beaver was undoubtedly a very common British mammal in 

 the later prehistoric periods, and to its activities we may owe some 

 very striking features of the present English landscape. Thus in East 

 Anglia, as Dr Henry Woodward {Trans. Essex F. C, 1883, iii., 8) first 

 pointed out, the inception of the fens may have been due to the 

 destruction of the primitive woodland by the Beaver, and the obstruction 

 of the natural drainage formed by prostrate tree-trunks as well as by 

 regular beaver-dams. Stubbs {pp. cit.) similarly ascribes the destruction 

 of the Pennine woodland and the formation of the peat-mosses of 

 Lancashire, etc., to the work of Beavers. Similar changes are being 

 or have been recently wrought by the same agency on a large scale 

 in North America (Geikie, Textbook of Geol., 1893, 474)- 



In Scotland also the remains of Beavers have been discovered, on 

 several occasions, in the marly beds commonly found at the bases of the 

 peat-mosses. The earliest find recorded is apparently that made in the 

 deposits of the Loch of Marlee, Kinloch, Perthshire, in 1788; here a 

 Beaver skeleton was found in a marl-pit, beneath 5 or 6 feet of peat ; 

 the skull and haunch bones were presented to the Society of 

 Antiquaries of Scotland by Dr Farquharson {Minute, i6th December 

 1788; lielW, Edinb. Phil. Journ., 1819, 1., 182). Neill {op. cit., 184), to 

 whom we owe much of our knowledge of the history of the Beaver in 

 this island, describes a skeleton found in 1818 in the course of draining 

 Middlestot's Bog, in the parish of Edrom, Berwickshire. 



As the country became settled the Beaver grew scarce and 

 eventually disappeared. Apart from human persecution it is perhaps 

 doubtful whether a small island like Britain could have long continued 

 to support a large population of Beavers. There is no doubt that the 

 animal lingered on in the historic period, and it probably did not 

 become extinct here before the thirteenth century. In the Leges 

 lVallic(Z {hook iii., ss. 11, 12), dating from the first half of the tenth 

 century, skins of Martens, Otters, and Beavers {Llostlydan) are 

 mentioned; and while 24 and 12 pence respectively are stated to be 

 the values of the skins of the first two species, that of the Beaver is 

 valued at no less a sum than 1 20 pence. The fur is said to have 

 been used for the trimmings of the royal robes, and the high price set 

 upon it shows that even at that remote date the Beaver had become 

 extremely rare. 



Gerald de Barri, better known as Giraldus Cambrensis, lived in 

 Ireland between 11 85 and 11 88, and in his Topographia Hibernica 

 {Distinc, i., c. 21) he notes the absence of the Beaver from that country. 

 In 1 1 88 he travelled through Wales with Baldwin, who was then 

 preaching the Third Crusade. In his Itinerarium Kambrice (book ii., 

 c. 3) Giraldus, as translated by Sir R. Colt Hoare, states that "the 

 noble river Teivi," in Cardiganshire, has a productive salmon " fishery 



