OF ZOOLOGICAL FOCL ;[43 



chure into the Mississippi, and more than fifteen hundred 

 miles from any maritime port, Mr. Say discovered it in 

 considerable numbers. Its existence in this case involves 

 some important consequences, for, if we consider it to 

 be of foreign origin, and take the period of its introduc- 

 tion to have been some time since the first permanent 

 colonization of this continent by Europeans, and suppose 

 the point at which it was introduced to have been upon 

 the sea-coast, it is necessary that the animal should have 

 travelled more than twenty thousand times its own length 

 every day while in motion, and to have been in progres- 

 sive motion one fourth of the whole time for two hundred 

 years, in order to have reached this locality; and if its 

 progress has been aided by accidental transportation to 

 some point on the IMississippi River, the result will not be 

 the less improbable. Now when we reflect, that it is 

 only sLxty or seventy years since the first settlements of 

 white men were made west of the Alleghany Mountams, 

 and that it is scarcely forty years since the country 

 beyond the Mississippi River was reached in their pro- 

 gress, and bear in mind that the accidental transporta- 

 tion of such animals could only have occurred by the 

 merest chance, and that in their natural progress they 

 must have overcome numerous and steep mountains, and 

 crossed wide and rapid rivers, the difficulties in the way 

 of this mode of explanation seem to be insuperable. It 

 is true, that the historical period within which this con- 

 tinent has been kno-wn, comprises probably but a small 

 part of its whole existence, and that the action of known 



