134 SIXTH RliPORT 1836. 



Although the progress of colonization in the Atlantic States 

 of North America has considerably restricted the range of the 

 indigenous quadrupeds, and also somewhat modified the migra- 

 tory movements of several groups of birds, we have no decided 

 evidence that any one species has become extinct in that country 

 through the agency of man ; and ample opportunities are still 

 afforded to the naturalist of making himself acquainted with the 

 habits and structure of its ferine inhabitants. Whether we re- 

 gard the striking peculiarities of the North American fauna, or 

 the remarkable coincidence of most of its generic forms with 

 those of Europe and Asia, and the considerable proportion of 

 species common to both continents, its study is interesting and 

 instructive to the general zoologist. But it is to the resi- 

 dent American naturalist that we especially look for a correct 

 history of the animals which surround him. He has a field 

 before him in a great part untrodden, and where cultivated, so 

 overrun with weeds, that the fruit cannot be collected : for the 

 early settlers having bestowed familiar European names on the 

 specifically and in some cases generically distinct animals which 

 they encountered in their new abodes, these were adopted by 

 the naturalists of the Old World either without examination or 

 after a comparison of dried and distorted exuviae only. Mis- 

 takes thus originating are still suffered to encumber our system- 

 atic works, and the American zoologist will do good service to 

 the branch of science which he cultivates, if, like the immortal 

 Ciivier, trusting solely to his own powers of observation, he 

 sits down on his own shore to dissect, examine, and reason 

 for himself. 



A correct view of the distribution of animals through the 

 North American zoological province cannot be given until 

 several large districts have been much more thoroughly investi- 

 gated. Exclusive of deficiencies in our knowledge of the species 

 Avhich frequent the country lying to the eastward of the Rocky 

 Mountains, the whole tract to the westward of that ridge, from 

 Mexico to the Icy Cape, may be said to be as yet a terra incog- 

 nita to zoologists. Of the animal productions of Russian 

 America almost nothing has been made public since the days 

 of Steller, with the exception of a few species described in 

 the Zoologischer Atlas of Eschscholtz, now unfortunately 

 brought to an abrupt conclusion by the death of its author. All 

 that is known of the zoology of New Caledonia and the banks 

 of tlie Columbia is derived from voyagers or travellers who have 

 partially described the objects of chase by their poi)ular names — 

 the notices occurring in the narrative of Lewis and Clark being 

 by far the fullest. The ornilhological portion of the natural 



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