who died in 948, in
determining the value of peltry, fix the price of the beaver's skin at a
hundred and twenty pence, when the skins of the stag, the wolf, the fox,
and the otter, were worth only eightpence each, that of the white weasel
or ermine at twelvepence, and that of the marten, at twenty-four pence.
The appropriate epithet of Broad-tail (Llostllyddan) was given it by the
Welsh. Giraldus Cambrensis, who travelled through Wales in 1188, gives,
in his Itinerary, a short account of the beaver, but states that the
river Teivy in Cardiganshire, and one other river in Scotland, were the
only places in Great Britain, where it was then found. In all
probability it did not long survive that century, for no subsequent
notice of it as a British animal is extant. Tradition, however, still
preserves the remembrance of its presence in those indelible records,
names of places. "Two or three waters in the Principality," says
Pennant, "still bear the name of _Llyn yr afangc_,--the Beaver Lake....
I have seen two of their supposed haunts: one in the stream that runs
through Nant Francon; the other in the river Conwy, a few miles above
Llanrwst; and both places, in all probability, had formerly been crossed
by beaver-dams."

If, as naturalists of the highest eminence believe, there is specific
difference between the beaver of Europe and that of America, then we may
say that our species is fast passing away from the earth. A few colonies
yet linger along the banks of the Danube, the Weser, the Rhone and the
Euphrates, but they consist of few individuals, ever growing fewer; and
the value of their fur exciting cupidity, they cannot probably resist
much longer the exterminating violence of man.

The causes which led to the extinction of these animals in our islands
are then obvious, and are thus playfully touched by the late James
Wilson:--"The beaver might have carried on business well enough, in his
own quiet way, although frequently incommoded by the love of peltry on
the part of a hat-wearing people; but it is clear that no man with a
small family and a few respectable farm servants, could either permit a
large and hungry wolf to be continually peeping at midnight through the
keyhole of the nursery, or allow a brawny bruin to snuff too frequently
under the kitchen door (after having hugged the watch-dog to death) when
the servant-maids were at supper. The extirpation then of at least two
of these quondam British species became