THE BEAVER 



however, in the days when beavers were still abundant in all the great rivers of 

 Europe, from most of which they have now been all but exterminated for the sake of 

 their valuable fur, and likewise for the odoriferous secretion known as castoreum, 

 which was formerly much used both in medicine and in perfumery. When the last 

 beaver was killed in the British Isles is unknown, but the species still survived in 

 Wales when the old chronicles were written ; and we have testimony as to its former 

 existence in England not only in the shape of skulls, teeth, and bones dug up from 

 time to time in the peat of the fens and other superficial deposits, but also in place- 

 names such as Beverley, in Yorkshire. 



Considerable colonies of beavers still exist, by the aid of special protection, 

 in certain parts of Scandinavia, while a few are taken from time to time in the 

 Rhone, but from the Rhine, and even the Vistula, they seem to have completely 

 disappeared. In eastern Russia they probably still survive locally, as they 

 doubtless do over a large part of Siberia, although our information on this point is 

 very defective. Indeed the southern range of the beaver in central Asia seems to 

 be still ' unknown, although it is certain that the species never existed in Kashmir 

 or the Himalaya. 



Of late years it has been suggested that each of the great European river- 

 systems possessed a special race of beavers of its own ; but the evidence adduced in 

 favour of this opinion is at present insufficient. Speaking broadly, the beaver may 

 be regarded as a circumpolar animal ; although its American representative has been 

 separated, on account of a comparatively small difference in the shape of the bones 

 covering the cavity of the nose, as a distinct species, under the name of Castor 

 canadensis. Unfortunately, the Canadian beaver has been almost as much 

 persecuted as its European relative, and has been exterminated from many districts. 



Beavers, it need scarcely be mentioned, are thoroughly aquatic rodents, 

 which feed on vegetable substances, and have their entrances to their habitations 

 under water. They remain active all the winter, when they swim beneath the ice. 

 In Europe beavers have given up constructing lodges, and live in burrows. 



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