beaver (1), be ver, biever

[A.S. beofer, befer, befor, beber; Icel. biofrr; 0. Icel. bior, biur; Sw. bäfver; Dan, bæver; Dut. bever; Ger. biber; O. H. Ger. biber, piber; Fr. bièvre; Sp. bibaro, tbevaro, befre; Port. bivaro; Ital. bivaro, bevero; Lat. fiber; Gael, beabhar; Ru . bobr; Lith. bebru, bebras. It is an old Aryan name with the meaning, brown water-animal. ( N.E.D. )] A. As substantive: 1. The English name of the well-known rodent mammal Castor fiber , or, more loosely, of any species belonging to the genus Castor. [CASTOR.] The animal so designated has in cach jaw two powerful incisor teeth, coated with hard enamel, by means of which it is enabled to cut acro the trunks of the trees which it requires for its engineering schemes. [BEAVER-DAM.] The hind feet are webbed, and one of the five toes has a double nail. The tail is flattened horizontally, and covered with scales. Large glandular pouches secrete an odoriferous substance called Castoreum, much prized by the ancients, who regarded it as of high medical value. [CASTOREUM.] The Castor fiber exists through the temperate and colder parts of North America. A species generally believed to be the same one (though this has been doubted) exists in Europe on the various European rivers, such as the Rhine, the Danube, and the Weser, and has attracted admiring notice since the days of Hero dot us. It formerly existed in historic times in Britain. Beverley in Yorkshire (in Anglo-Saxon Beforleag or Before lagu = Beaver place ( Bosworth ), or Be a farl a i = Beaver's lea, or Beverlac = Beaver's lake) has still a beaver on its coat of arms, the tradition being that the animal inhabited the river Hull in the vicinity. In Wales it existed as late as A.D. 1188, on the Teify. In Scotland it was found to or beyond the fifteenth century on Loch Ne . For an excellent account of the living beaver see The American Beaver and his Works , by Lewis H. Morgan, Philadelphia, 1868, 8vo. Remains of the common beaver have been met with in England in post-tertiary poatbeds in Cambridge shire and E ex. In 1870, when excavations were being made for the East London Waterworks Company's new reservoirs, a little north of the Lea, between the stations of Clapton and St. James's Street, Walthamstow, on the Chingford Branch of the Great Eastern Railway, abundant remains of the beaver were discovered, whilst the accumulations of fallen timber favoured the conclusion drawn by Dr. H. Woodward that formerly ancient beaver-dams existed on the Lea, then (as now in America) causing floods, which inundated and destroyed much of the forest. (See Brit. A oc. Rep . for 1869, ii. 104.) An allied but much larger species, Trogon the rium Cuvieri (Owen), has been found fo il in the Norfolk Forest bed, and another in North America, the Cast oroides Ohio ens is (Foster). 2. The fur of the animal just described. 3. A hat made of such fur or hair. "The broker here his spacious beaver wears, Upon his brow sit jealousies and cares."-Gay. 4. A heavy-milled woollen cloth, sometimes felted, used for making overcoats, hats, . (Simmonds, .). B. Attributively in compounds like the following: