254 MAMMALIA. 



I am informed by William Clowbridge, an old hunter and trap- 

 per, that during his boyhood Beavers were common along the 

 western border of the Adirondacks. In the year 1819 he caught 

 two in one of their huts on the outlet of Brantingham Lake, in 

 Lewis County, on which stream they had then two dams. In 

 March, 1837, he caught, at Little Otter Lake, also in Lewis 

 County, the last Beayer obseryed on this side of the Adirondacks. 

 The veteran hunter, Asa Puffer, was at the time trapping for the 

 same animal. Mr. Clowbridge tells me that the spring was un- 

 usually forward, and that there was some open water along the 

 north shore of the lake, and about its outlet. He made a small 

 opening in the dam, and in the gap thus formed set his trap, a few 

 inches below the surface of the water. On returning to the lake, 

 a week afterward, an eagle was seen to rise and fly away from the 

 vicinity of the outlet. Proceeding to the dam he could find neither 

 the trap nor the weight to which it had been attached. He then 

 went to the spot from which the eagle rose and there found the 

 Beaver in the trap. 



Mr. John Constable has kindh- presented me with the skull of a 

 very large Beaver which was "trapped b)- William Wood, in the 

 fall of 1837, in a pond northwest of Indian Point on the Raquette," 

 Mr. Constable writes me that an old Indian who had been unsuc- 

 cessful in his attempts to capture this same Beaver, and who was 

 then about to leave this part of the Wilderness, told Wood where 

 the animal was to be found. Wood carried his boat to the pond 

 and paddled twice around it, searching carefully for signs, without 

 going ashore. At last he discovered fur upon the root of an old 

 birch that projected into the water. Here he placed the trap, 

 attached to a float, and on the second day found the Beaver in it. 



Dr.' DeKay, writing in 1841, says : "In the summer of 1840, we 

 traversed those almost interminable forests on the highlands sepa- 

 rating the sources of the Hudson and St. Lawrence, and included 

 in Hamilton, Herkimer, and a part of Plssex counties. In the 



