The ALPINE MARMOT is also found in the Carpathians and the Pyrenees. Another species, the BOBAC, ranges eastward from the German frontier across Poland, Russia, and the steppes of Asia to Kamchatka. In Ladak and Western Tibet a short-tailed species, the HIMALAYAN MARMOT, is found, sometimes living at a height of nearly 17,000 feet. The GOLDEN MARMOT is found in the Pamirs.
[Illustration: _By permission of the New York Zoological Society._
The engineering feats of the beavers, in damming streams and forming pools, are the most remarkable achievements performed by living animals.]
The BEAVERS are classed as the last family of the squirrel-like group of the Rodents, and the largest creatures of that order in the northern hemisphere. The value of their fur has caused their destruction in great measure where they were once numerous, and has led to their total extirpation where there is evidence that they existed as a not uncommon animal. They were formerly distributed over the greater part of Europe. In England semi-fossilised remains show that they were not uncommon. In Wales beavers' skins were mentioned in the year 940 in the laws of Howel Dha, and in 1188 Giraldus stated that they were living on the river Teify, in Cardiganshire. Beavers were formerly found in France, especially on the Rhone, where a few are still said to survive, in Germany, Austria, Russia, Poland, and in Sweden and Norway, on the rivers Dwina and Petchora, and on the great rivers of Siberia. A few still remain in two districts of Norway, and some were known to frequent the Elbe in 1878. The Moldau, in Bohemia, is also credited with a colony; but parts of the Danube are believed to be the chief haunt of the European beaver at the present time. The American beaver, though its range has greatly contracted, is still sufficiently numerous for its fur to be a valuable item in the winter fur-sales.
[Illustration: _Photo by C. Reid_] [_Wishaw, N.B._
The beaver here shown was kept as a pet. It was photographed upon a stream in Scotland. The long upper fur is removed when the skin is prepared by the furrier.]
[Illustration: _Photo by C. Reid_] [_Wishaw, N.B._
This is a photograph of a swimming beaver. Note the advantage which it has taken of the eddy in the stream.]