APPENDIX. 481 



grounds " to the northward of the woods have also 

 their appropriate inhabitants, such as the brown bear, 

 the arctic fox, Parry's marmot, the polar hare, and the 

 musk ox. The small variety of the reindeer winters 

 within the verge of the wooded country, but travels to 

 the northward in the summer, and drops its young on 

 the sea-coast. The wolf and the wolverene inhabit 

 woods and barren grounds indifferently, and the polar 

 bear seldom travels inland. The " prairies, " or wood- 

 less plains, which skirt the Rocky Mountains from the 

 55th parallel down to the Mississippi, and enjoy milder 

 winters than the more easterly districts, have another set 

 of inhabitants, of which the bison is the most important. 

 This animal feeds in countless herds on the grass of the 

 prairies, and furnishes food to a much greater Indian 

 population than the wooded districts can support. The 

 bison exists also in the woods up to the 62d parallel, 

 though in much smaller numbers, but it does not travel to 

 the eastward of the 105th meridian ; and a few stragglers 

 only have found their way across the mountains to the 

 fertile and comparatively temperate country which skirts 

 the Pacific. The prairie wolf, the kit-fox, and various 

 marmots are peculiar to the plains ; and the ferocious 

 and powerful grisly bear, though most abundant on the 

 alpine declivities, also ranges for some distance over the 

 flat country to the eastward. 



The north-west coast which we have just alluded to 

 has a climate more like that of the east coast of Europe 

 in its temperature than any other part of North Ame- 

 rica : but it is very moist, owing to the vicinity of the 

 Rocky Mountains. The summits of this range are in- 

 habited by a wool-bearing goat named Cajwa Americana, 

 and the declivities by the Ovis montana, or mountain 

 sheep. The country nearer the Pacific coast is fre- 



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