220 THE ZOOLOGIST. 



NOTES AND QUERIES. 



MAMMALIA. 



RODENTIA. 



An Albino of the Beaver (Castor canadensis). — From all accounts by 

 those in a position to know, the Beaver seems to be following the Buffalo 

 into a precarious existence. Before long now both may have undergone 

 the fate of so many other extinct species. It is therefore of importance 

 that any items of information about the Beaver should be placed upon 

 record. So far as I can find in the limited literature of the subject within 

 my reach, no notice seems to have been taken of albinism in the Beaver, 

 though doubtless the variation takes place as frequently in the species as 

 in other animals. On the walls of the Mansion House of Mavisgrove 

 here, there has hung for several generations past a square glazed case which 

 contains a very beautiful pure white Beaver skin. Not long ago I had the 

 privilege of examining it, and, although it is now one hundred and twenty- 

 one years since it was made into a specimen, the skin is still in the best of 

 preservation. There is a printed label attached, but the record thereon is 

 merely a paraphrase of a written statement, now faded greatly, which is 

 gummed to the back of the case. The written document is as follows : — 

 " In the year 1777 Mr. Joseph Aimse, the Indian interpreter at Michili- 

 mackinac, informed Colonel de Peyster, then Major to the Kings Regt., 

 and Commandant of that post, situated at the confluence of the Lakes 

 Huron and Michigan, that an Indian had been seen standing for several 

 days at the corner of the storehouse, who had just informed him that he 

 had been directed by a spirit in the form of an Amik Waubascan (white 

 Beaver),* whilst slumbering in the Great Beaver Island, to take his stand 

 there, and kill the commandant as he passed ; but, finding his heart fail to 

 give the fatal blow, he begged to be sent out of that part of the country 

 which the commandant refused, but ordered him to go to the island and 

 fetch him the white Beaver, which the Indian accordingly did ; and this is 

 the skin of it. — (Signed) A. S. de Peyster." Apparently this document 

 is in the handwriting of Col. Arentz Schuyler de Peyster himself, who, as 

 I find from a short biographical notice in McDowall's ' Sketches from 

 Nature,' pp. 314-321, was a Dutchman by extraction, but a Briton by 



* The only white one seen in that part of the country. 



