PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESS. 45 



ning alongst the same like a Satchell, which shee opens and shuts 

 at pleasure to let them in and out."* 



He characterized and described at length many other animals, 

 among them the manatee, the iguana {luanna}^ the armadillos 

 {Bardati), the ant-eaters, the sloth, the pelican, the ivory-billed 

 woodpecker, and the humming birds. 



" There are found in the foune land," he wrote. " certaine 

 birds, so little that the whole body of one of them is no bigger 

 than the top of the biggest ringer of a man's hand, and yet is the 

 bare body, without the feathers, not half so bigge. This Bird, 

 besides her littlenesse, is of such velocitie and swiftness in flying 

 that who so seeth her flying in the aire cannot see her flap or beat 

 her wings after any other sort than doe the Humble Bees or 

 Beetles. And I know not whereunto I may better liken them 

 then to the little birds which the lymners of books are accus 

 tomed to paint on the Margent of Church Bookes and other 

 Bookes of Divine Service. Their feathers are of manie faire 

 colours, golden, yellow and greene." 



That the spirit of Oviedo's work was scientific and critical, and 

 not credulous and marvel-seeking, like that of many of his con 

 temporaries, is everywhere manifest. His materials are classified 

 in systematically arranged chapters. His methods may be illus 

 trated by referring to his chapter " On Tigers." 



" In Terra Firma," he begins, " are found many terrible beasts 

 which the first Spaniards called tigers which thing, neverthe 

 less, I dare not affirm." He then reviews concisely and critically 

 what is know r n of tigers elsewhere, and goes on to describe the 

 supposed American tiger at length, and in such terms that it is at 

 once evident that the mammal under discussion is one of the 

 spotted cats, doubtless the jaguar (Felis onca) .f 



The second in order of time to publish a book upon American 

 natural history was Jean de Lery, [b. 1535, d. 1611], a Calvin- 

 istic minister, who was a member of the Huguenot colony founded 

 by the Chevalier de Villegagnon in 1555, on the small island 



* Sumario, Cap. xxvii. PURCHAS : his pilgrimes, iii, p. 995. 

 t Sumario, Cap. xi. 



