58 BIOLOGICAL SOCIETY OF WASHINGTON. 



a representative man in the Puritan community in which he 

 lived. His habits were those of an English man of fashion, and 

 his Rabelaisian humor, when directed against his fellow-colonists 

 and their institutions, was no recommendation to their favor. We 

 cannot wonder that he was hunted from settlement 'to settlement 

 and even cast into prison, to endure, without bedding or fire, the 

 rigor of a New England winter. 



As a naturalist, Morton appears to have been the most accurate 

 of the two of this time. In those parts of his book which de 

 scribe animals and plants he manifests a definite scientific purpose. 

 He discriminates between species, and frequently points out 

 characters by which American and European forms may be dis 

 tinguished. He was the first to banish the lion from the catalogue 

 of the mammals of eastern North America. Even Wood, though 

 he admitted that he could not say that he ever saw one with his 

 own eye, evidently believed that lions inhabited the woods of Mas 

 sachusetts. Morton was a skeptic because, as he said, " it is con 

 trary to the Nature of the beast to frequent places accustomed to 

 snow ; being like the Catt, that will hazard the burning of her tayle, 

 rather than abide from the fire." His brief biographies, especially 

 those of mammals, indicate that he was an observer of no slight 

 acuteness. 



Twenty species of mammals, thirty-two of birds, twenty of 

 fishes, eight of marine invertebrates, and twenty-seven of plants 

 are mentioned, usually in such definite terms that they may readily 

 be identified. 



A thorough pagan himself, he seems to have commanded the 

 confidence of the Indians more than others, to have lived in their 

 society, and learned to comprehend the meaning of their customs. 

 His first book, " The Original! of the Natives, their manners and 

 customs," seems to have been the careful record of rather critical 

 observations. 



Wood's book is no less deserving of praise. The climate and 

 the soil are judiciously discussed, and the herbs, fruits, woods, 



