Bibliographical Notices. 209 



. BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTICES. 



Natural History of Neiv York. Zoology, or the New- York Fauna, 

 comprising detailed descriptions of all the Animals hitherto observed 

 within the state of New York, with brief notices of those occasion- 

 ally found near its borders, and accompanied by appropriate illus- 

 trations. By James E. De Kay. Part I. Mammalia. 4to. Albany, 

 1842. 



The appearance of the advertisement of a zoological work in 

 America extending to ten quarto volumes, devoted to the natural 

 productions of a particular province, induced us, in these days of 

 cheap publications, to procure a sight of the first part of the under- 

 taking. It is the result of one of those State- Surveys, several of 

 which have been previously completed by other districts, and it tells 

 much for the enterprise of the country that an examination on such 

 a scale should have been undertaken, and still more so that the 

 results should be so early commenced to be laid before the public, 

 thereby repaying to the state value for the employment it had given 

 to its scientific men ; and it might stand as an example to the go- 

 vernments of older countries, not to store up the results of the ex- 

 pensive labours of years for the unlikely probability of rendering 

 them perfect after the generation of their projectors shall have 

 ceased to exist: " go ahead" may sometimes be taken as a useful 

 motto. 



By authority of acts of the Assembly the above-mentioned Survey 

 was made : " William L. Marcy, governor, arranged the plan of the 

 Survey in the summer of 1836, and assigned its departments as fol- 

 lows : the Zoological department to James E. De Kay ; the Bota- 

 nical department to John Torrey ; the Mineralogical and Chemical 

 departments to Lewis C. Beck ; the Geological department to Wil- 

 liam W. Mather, Ebenezer Emmons, Timothy A. Conrad, and Lard- 

 ner Vanuxem. This arrangement was subsequently altered by the 

 institution of a Palaeontological department, under the care of Mr. 

 Conrad, and by the appointment of James Hall to supply his place 

 as a geologist. The results of the Survey appear in the following 

 volumes, and in eight several collections of specimens of the animals, 

 plants, soils, minerals, rocks and fossils found within the state, one 

 of which collections constitutes a museum of natural history at the 

 capital of the state, and the others are distributed among its col- 

 legiate institutions." The volume before us, being the first of the 

 series, is prefaced by an introduction of 188 pages, which will prove 

 interesting to the general reader ; it gives a rapid sketch of the pre- 

 sent condition of the arts and sciences, of the progress of agricul- 

 ture, internal navigation, railroads, horticulture, newspaper-press, 

 history of the antiquities, and of the Aborigines ; in fact, touching 

 on almost every topic. 



The real commencement of the book, or of the Zoological part, 

 has a short preface devoted to the description of the surface and 

 boundary of the state, with a tabular view of the mammalia indige- 



Ann. $ Mag. N. Hist. Vol. xi. P 



