INTliODLC'TOllY LETTER. 15 



thirty serpents, collected in the vicinity of the Danish 

 Fort on the same coast. The southern extremity of 

 Africa has been explored by Dutch naturalists, during a 

 long series of years. MM, Kuhl, Van Hasselt, Boie, 

 and Macklot, touching at Cape Town on their voyage 

 to India, there formed collections. Dr Van Horstok, 

 during his long residence in that town, employed himself 

 in procuring the rarest objects, and has furnished succes- 

 sively to our Museum the materials for a Fauna of that 

 flourishing colony; Drs Smuts and Smith also have 

 equally contributed to enrich our galleries with many little- 

 known African serpents. 



There are, properly speaking, but two countries of the 

 vast continent of South America which have been zoolo- 

 gically explored ; Brazil and Guyana. A part of the speci- 

 mens procured in the travels of M. Natterer, in several 

 provinces of the former country, which are deposited in 

 the Museum of Vienna, have been communicated to 'ours. 

 The Prince of Neuwied, who visited the eastern coast of 

 Brazil, situated between the 13° and 23° of south lati- 

 tude, has kindly presented to us duplicates of the reptiles 

 collected by him. These examples were followed by the 

 late M. Spix, whose travels extended farther to the north, 

 along the banks of the Maragnon, to Bahia. A small 

 series of the ophidians of Brazil, collected by MM. 

 Olfers, Freireiss, and Beske, also form part of the 

 Museum of the Netherlands. Several packages of rep- 

 tiles from the province of St Paul, have been sent to us 

 from Paris by M. Beske of Hamburg, and by M. Boie 

 of Kiel. The beautiful and numerous collections which 

 our establishment owes to the disinterested care of M. 

 DiEPERiNK, residing in Paramaribo, have furnished us 

 with the means of making an enumeration of the greatest 

 part of the productions of our colony at Surinam. We 

 are indebted to the Prince of Musignano, and to Profes- 

 sor Troost of NashviUe, for the reptiles of North Ame- 

 rica, that form part of our Museum. The first has 

 brought us a considerable number of specimens, natives 

 of the northern pro\ances of the United States ; the lat- 

 ter, settled in the state of Tennessee, has exerted much 



