HISTORY OF THE ADIROXDACK BEAVER. 



403 



Despite the decreasing demand for beaver skins, due to the extensive 

 substitution of nutria and of muskrat and rabbit fur, and the fact that the 

 popularity of the "beaver" hat began to wane about this time,* there was 

 little if any cessation in the war of extermination carried on against them. 

 It was found that the dressed skins were serviceable for small articles, such 

 as caps, cellars, cuffs, muffs and gauntlets, and as the population of the 

 State was now rapidly increasing and hunters and 

 trappers becoming every day more numerous, the 

 ranks of the beaver continued to be thinned with 

 merciless rapidity. 



In 1830 I estimate the beaver population of the 

 Adirondacks to have been about 500 — perhaps less. 



In 1842. DeKay. who, as State Geologist of the 

 extensive Xatural History Survey carried on by New 

 York for several years commencing in 1836, made 

 excursions in the Adirondacks for the express purpose 

 of investigating its mammalia, wrote: 



" The beaver, whose skins once formed so impor- 

 tant an article of commerce to this State as to have 

 been incorporated in the armorial bearings of the 

 old colonv, is now nearly extirpated within its 

 limits. * * * 



" In the summer of 1840 we traversed those 

 almost interminable forests on the highlands separat- 

 ing the sources of the Hudson and the St. Lawrence 

 and included in Hamilton, Herkimer and a part of 

 Essex counties. In the course of our journey we saw 

 several beaver signs, as they are termed by the 



hunters. The beaver has been so much harassed in this State that it has 

 ceased making dams, and contents itself with making large excavations in 

 the banks of streams. Within the past year (1841) they have been seen on 

 Indian and Cedar Rivers, and at Paskungameh or Tupper's Lake; and 



DRIED CASTOREUM 

 POUCHES. (After Martin.) 



POPULARLY CALLED " BARK- 



STONE" OR " BEAVER CASTORS." 



* It did not finally drop out of fashion until 1870. A few old beaver hats are seen occasionally 

 even to-day, worn by elderly men. 



