File:The American Museum journal (c1900-(1918)) (17972486610).jpg

Title: The American Museum journal
Identifier: americanmuseumjo14amer (find matches)
Year: c1900-(1918) (c190s)
Authors: American Museum of Natural History
Subjects: Natural history
Publisher: New York : American Museum of Natural History
Contributing Library: American Museum of Natural History Library
Digitizing Sponsor: Biodiversity Heritage Library

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The beavers have brought a supply of tree trunks and boughs to repair the break in the dam and thus save the pond as previously noted, for the making of hats, and as these hats were worn in ever increasing numbers from 1100 on- wards until the invention of the silk hat, it seems quite probable that the beaver hat was the cause of the practical ex- termination of the beaver in Europe. About 1840 as the number of beavers was getting low and the price for their skins correspondingly high, the big South American water rat, or coypu, known to the trade as " nutria," came to their aid. The fur of these animals felted just as well and cost much less, and they were imported by thousands. The silk hat however, was their real salvation; this, the hall mark of the well-dressed man, is said to have reached Paris about 1825, although it was known in Florence at least fifty years earlier. The beavers gained a new lease of life from the introduction of the silk hat. It rapidly came into vogue and the price of beaver skins declined to a point where trapping was no longer profitable, and for a time the animal increased and multiplied. The drop in price may be realized by saying that in 1869. skins were offered by the bale as low as twenty- five cents apiece. 127

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