162 Fretp Museum or Natura. History — Zoétoey, Vor. XI, 
Illinois, dated April 7, 1910, who writes, “From the best information 
I can get, there are a few Beaver in Alexander County.” There are 
but few records of even comparatively recent date for Illinois. Thomas 
records a specimen killed in Jackson Co., in 1851 (J. ¢., p. 657). Ever- 
mann and Butler state that a Beaver was seen swimming in the Wabash 
River about 12 miles above Lafayette, Indiana, in the summer of 1889 
(I. c., p. 128). According to early writers, however, they were common in 
suitable localities throughout the state in the early part of the last 
century. Woods (1820-21) says, ‘‘To the north of us [English Prairie, 
Illinois] there are buffalo and elks, also beavers and others on the 
rivers.” * We also find in the records of Long’s expedition the follow- 
ing statement, ‘‘Deer, turkeys and beaver are still found in plenty in 
the low grounds along both sides of the Mississippi” ¢ [two miles north 
of the confluence of the Ohio and Mississippi]. In 1854 Kennicott 
writes, ‘‘The remains of beaver dams exist in several streams’ [Cook 
Co.]. (1. ¢., p. 579.) Mr. G. E. Wood states, ‘‘The beaver seems to 
have been practically exterminated in this part of the state [Cham- 
paign Co.] before the first permanent settlers came. There was an 
extensive dam on the South Fork a few miles above Urbana, and 
several others less generally known, on the lower part of the Salt 
Fork.” (J. ¢., p. 536.) 
In Wisconsin they are still to be found in more or less numbers in 
most of the northern counties, although for many years they have been 
exterminated in the southern part of the state. Lapham states that 
“The last Beaver killed, in the southern part of Wisconsin, was in 1819, 
on Sugar Creek, Walworth County, a very large one.” (I. ¢., p. 339, 
foot note.) Several colonies are known in Marinette, Forest, Iron and 
a number of other counties in northern Wisconsin. Mr. W. J. Webster 
of Park Falls writes me (1909) that there are ‘quite a number of 
Beaver in Price Co.” According to Mr. N. Lucins, Jr., of Solon 
Springs, in 1909 there was a large family of Beavers on the Moose 
River in Douglas County. It is reported to occur in Wisconsin at least 
as far south as Buffalo County. Mr. J. Hobbs of Medford, Taylor Co., 
informs me that there are a number of Beaver in Taylor Co., and 
that he knows where there are “‘a few Beaver dams with Beavers in 
them.” Mr. George F. Erzwein of Athens, who is an experienced 
trapper, informs me they are still to be found in Marathon Co. 
In northern Michigan Beaver were at one time very numerous, and 
it was in the Michigan peninsula south of Lake Superior that Mr. 
_ *Woods, J. Two Years’ Residence in the Settlement on English Prairie in the 
Illinois Country, 1820-1821 (1822), p. 290. 
t James, E. Expedition from Pittsburgh to the Rocky Mountains, 1819-1820 
(1823), p. 42. 
