194 ROMANCE OF THE BEAVER 
natives used as many good pelts as they sold and 
seldom saved the skins of those taken in summer, 
though they killed for food the whole year round, 
so that 500,000 per annum is more likely to repre- 
sent the aggregate destruction by man.” How 
nearly correct this is it is impossible to say, but 
we do know that whatever the number that have 
been killed each year it has nearly always been 
greater than it should have been, a statement 
easily proved by the rapid disappearance of the 
animals throughout the greater part of their range. 
The following account written by Mr. R. Mac- 
Farlane, who was chief factor of the Hudson’s Bay 
Company, and published by the Smithsonian 
Institution (Washington) gives some interesting 
facts and figures: “If let alone, or not much 
disturbed by hunting, the beaver will rapidly 
increase in numbers. In proof of this statement, I 
would mention that many extensive tracts of 
country in which they had become scarce or had 
wholly or almost entirely disappeared (as a result 
of the keen and very costly rivalry in trade which 
had for many years existed between the Northwest 
Company of Montreal and the Hudson’s Bay Com- 
pany of England previous to their coalition in 1821, 
it was uncertain for some time ‘which of them 
lost most money—neither of them gained money,’ 
while the general demoralization of Indians and 
whites was very lamentable) they afterwards re- 
covered under the fostering policy of protection 
