SELECTIONS FROM A NOTE BOOK OF MAN- 

 ASSEH CUTLER, ENTITLED "A DESCRIP- 

 TION OF THE ANIMALS IN NORTH 

 AMERICA TAKEN FROM ACTUAL 

 OBSERVATION." 



Manasseh Cutler was a man of many parts ; clergy- 

 man, doctor, politician, pioneer and naturalist. Aside 

 from Josselyn, whose quaint writings on the flora and 

 fauna of New England were printed a century before 

 Cutler's time, and which can hardly be classed as scientific 

 work, Cutler was the first person in this region to give 

 serious attention to the natural objects aliont him and the 

 first to attempt to describe systematically the plants of 

 New England ; the results of his observations being printed 

 in the first volnme of the Memoirs of the American Acad- 

 emy of Arts and Sciences, where some three hundred 

 and fifty species of " indigenous vegetables " are described. 



Cutler made copious notes of the plants of this part of 

 the county and several mainiscript volumes of these notes 

 are in possession of Harvard College. In addition, he 

 recorded his observations on the fauna of the region as it 

 came under his notice and one such volume is in posses- 

 sion of the Essex Institute. These notes may not be of 

 any special scientific value or record any observations not 

 already known to the zoologists of New England, from a 

 historical point of view. However, they do possess a certain 

 interest as showing the lack of knowledge at the time they 

 were made, in 1786, and that such facts as are recorded 



(120) 



