Bco?jT!???!(^s of A^atural History in America. 379 



Creatures of remarkable appearance, which could be preserved with 

 ease, were the first to become known. Among fishes, for instance, those 

 with a hard, inflexible integument, such as the trunk fishes. Every 

 species of the family Ostradontidce was known in Ivuro]>c as early as 

 1685; most of them probabl}^ a century before. We know that Colum- 

 bus caught a trunk fish and described it in his Voyages. 



Professor Tuckerman has traced in a most instructive manner the 

 beginnings of European acquaintance with American plants, finding 

 traces of the knowledge of a few at a ver}^ early period: 



Dalechainp, Chisius, Loliel, and Alpiims — all authors of the sixteenth centnr)' — 

 must be cited occasionally in any complete synonj'my of our Flora. The Indian- 

 corn, the side-saddle flower [Sarraccnia purpurea and S.flava), the colum1)ine, the 

 common milkweed {Asciepias cornutl), the everlasting' {Antennaria viargaritacca), 

 and the Arbor vita; w-ere known to the just-mentioned botanists before 1600. Sar- 

 racoiia flava was sent either from Virginia, or possibly from some Spanish monk in 

 Florida. Clusius's figure of our well-known northern .S". purpurea .... was 

 derived from a specimen furnished to him by one Mr. Claude Gonier, apothecary 

 at Paris, who himself had it from Lisbon ; whither we may suppose it was carried 

 by some fisherman from the Newfoundland coast. The evening primrose ( CEiio- 

 ttiera biennis) was known in Europe, according to Liunteus, as early as 1614. Poty- 

 gonmn sagittatum an(\. ara/otiuni (tear-thuml)) were figured by De Laet, probably 

 from New York specimens, in his Novus Orbis, 1633. Johnson's edition of 

 Gerard's Herbal (1636) .... contains some dozen North American species, 

 furnished often from the garden of Mr. John Tradescant .... and John Park- 

 inson — whose Theatrum Botanicum ( 1 640 ) is declared by Tournefort to embrace 

 a larger number of species than any work which had gone before it — describes, espec- 

 ially from Cornuti, a still larger munber.' 



All the early voyagers w^ere striving for the di.scovery of a western 

 pas.sage to India, and the West Indies, so called, were considered simply 

 a stage on the journey toward the East Indies. It is not strange, tliere- 

 fore, that writers should often have failed to distinguish the faunal rela- 

 tions of the animals which they described. Many curious paradoxes in 

 nomenclature lia\-e thtts arisen — Cassis madaoascariaisis, for instance, a 

 very misleading name for a common West India mollusk. 



V. 



The seventeenth century bears upon its roll the names of many explor- 

 ers besides those of linglish origin who have already been named. 

 Within fifty years of the time of Harriot and of the planting of the col- 

 ony at Roanoke, the lutniber and extent of the European settlements in 

 America had become very considerable. Virginia and the New England 

 plantations were growing ])opulous and Maryland was fairly established. 

 Insular colonies were thriving at Newfoundland and Bernmda and on 

 Barbados and elsewhere in the West Indies. 



New Spaui and Florida marked the northern limits of the domain of 

 the Spaniards, who had already overriin almost all of South America. 



' Archiuologia Americana, I\', ])j). 116, 117. 



