36 RXTINCT BRITISH ANIMALS. 



the truth we have not manie Bevers but onelie in 

 the Teifie in Wales."* The precise spot on the 

 river appears to have been Kilgarran, which is 

 situated on the summit of a rock at a place called 

 Caharch Mawr (now Kenarth), where there is a 

 salmon leap. 



Drayton, in his " Polyolbion " (song vi.), has thus 

 versified the tradition : — 



More famous long agone, than for the salmon's leap, 

 For Beavers Tivy was, in her strong banks that bred, 

 Which else no other brook of Britain nourished : 

 Where Nature in the shape of this now perish'd beast 

 Her property did seem to have wondrously exprest. 



There is some reason for supposing, however, that 

 there were other rivers in Wales, besides the Teivi, 

 which were frequented by these animals. " In the 

 Conway," says Camden, " is the Beavers' pool," and a 

 portion of the river bank above Llanwrst is supposed 

 to have been a Beavers' dam. 



Sir Bichard Colt Hoare, in his edition of the 

 " Itinerary " of Giraldus, remarks : " If the Castor 

 of Giraldus, and the Avanc of Humphrey Llwyd and 

 of the Welsh dictionaries, be really the same animal, 

 it certainly is not peculiar to the Teivi, but was 

 equally known in North Wales, as the names of the 

 places testify. A small lake in Montgomeryshire is 

 called Llyn yr Afangc ; a pool in the river Conway, 

 not far from Bettws, bears the same name (the 

 Beavers' Pool) ; and the name of the vale called 

 Nant Ffrancon, upon the river Ogwen, in Caernar- 



* Holinshed's " Chronicles," vol. i. p. 379. 



