ZOOLOGY. 349 



WOOL IN THE UNITED STATES. 



BY recent scientific researches on the part of P. A. Brown, Esq., 

 of Pennsylvania, it has been established that the United States can 

 out-rival the world in wool as well as in cotton. Thus, Spanish sheep, 

 yielding naturally wool 2,000 to the inch, carried to England, degene- 

 rated to 900 to the inch, and brought to the United States recovered 

 to 2,100, or finer than the original. The fact being once established 

 that our climate and soil produce finer wool than other countries, will 

 give to our manufactures inevitably the superiority in cloths, if the 

 manufacturer is allied in his interest to the grower. 



GOULD'S COLLECTION OF HUMMING BIRDS. 



MR. GOULD, the distinguished British ornithologist, has exhibited, 

 during the past summer, at the London Zoological Gardens, his col- 

 lection of humming-birds, for the acquisition of which years have 

 been spent. The collection is contained in twenty-four cases, and 

 embraces upwards of two thousand specimens, comprising three 

 hundred and twenty species. Ten species only were known to Lin- 

 nieus. In 1824, Mr. Bullock had collected a hundred species. In 

 1842, Mr. Loddiges possessed a hundred and ninety-six species. 



The splendor of plumage, which forms so well-distinguished a fea- 

 ture in this group, has probably given rise to the popular error that 

 humming-birds are found in the East. The truth, is, however, that 

 humming-birds exist only on the continent of America, in the West 

 India Islands, and in two islands of the Pacific. The form, therefore, 

 is essentially American ; one beautiful little species is well known in 

 the United States, and passes through the whole extent of that vast 

 territory from its winter quarters in Mexico, until it reaches Canada, 

 which is the extreme northern limit on the eastern side of America. 

 On the western side, a similar species, but much more brilliant in 

 color in fact, the most intensely brilliant of the whole group 

 migrates from Mexico, through California, to Nootka Sound, and 

 probably even as far as Sitka. From Bolivia, on the other side of 

 the equator, another brilliant species migrates to the south, and pene- 

 trates as far as Terra del Fucgo, where the officers of her Majesty's 

 .ship Beagle found them feeding on insects in the blossoms of the 

 fuschia while snow was lying upon the ground ; for humming-birds do 

 not necessarily require a high temperature, and that they can support 

 an intense degree of cold is abundantly proved by the very altitude 

 to which several species are entirely limited in the Andes. Some 

 species are found in the West Indian Islands ; two in the Island of 

 Juan Fernandez ; one in Chiloe, in the Pacific. In the vast range of 

 the Andes, at a height of seven or eight thousand feet, they are most 

 abundant. They glitter even above the snow line, at an elevation of 

 fourteen or fifteen thousand feet. Cliimborazo has its peculiar bird ; 

 and so has Pichinoha. Every valley of those wild regions each a 

 world in itself from its prodigious depth exhibits some variety in 

 form or color. 



