THE NATURALIST. 



NOTES ON THE NATURAL HISTORY OF NORTH AMERICA* 

 By Edward Doubleday, C.M.E.S. 



During the few last days of our passage (across the Atlantic) we saw great 

 numbers of Porpoises. One night, when the sea was very luminous, we had 

 scores of them close to the ship, and, as they shot through the water, they left a 

 line of fire of a pure white colour ; we also saw scores of small cetaceous fish, 

 from ten to sixteen feet in length. On the evening of the 24th of April we had 

 a pilot come on board ; since the loss of the Mexico, these men are much better 

 behaved, and come out forty miles from New York : soon after dark we saw the 

 lighthouses at the entrance of the outer bay. 



The persons we met with at our hotel at New York gave me a good opinion 

 of the Americans : they were very civil, and communicative, but not inquisitive. 

 From all to whom we had letters, we have received the greatest kindness. A 

 gentleman, to whom we had an introduction, accompanied us to the custom-house, 

 and all our luggage was passed without examination, or even uncording the 

 boxes. We called on two brothers of the name of Carey, Englishmen, botanists, 

 and very kind persons ; they knew W. Christy, Newman, and most of our 

 club ;t we dined with them on the 30th. "We went to the Lyceum of Natural 

 History. They have here a good many minerals, some very fine fossils ; not 

 many birds, but some beautifully stuffed by Ward, who resides here ; also a 

 library. On the 1st of May we attended a meeting at the Lyceum ; there was 

 not much to interest : a paper on a new Arvicola, and a new Sorez : Cooper, 

 who helped Bonaparte, was there, and several other members ; all very plea- 

 sant people. 



My first journey was on the 27th, to the residence of J. S., directly after 

 breakfast. I crossed the ferry to Jersey city, where the rail-road to New Bruns- 

 wick commences. The first part of this is unfinished, and too uneven to allow 

 the passage of locomotives ; we were therefore drawn by two horses at length ; 

 the tram is so near the cut made for the permanent road, that I consider it any- 

 thing but safe. In some places there is an intervening space of not more than 

 six inches between the tram and the edge of a precipice, cut perpendicular 

 through the rock, thirty or forty feet deep, and not a morsel of fence to prevent 



* See Entomological Magazine, VoL IV., p. 487. 

 t The Entomological Club.— Ed» 

 No. 14, Vol. II. 3g 



