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Sake mith 
= 
BEGINNINGS OF AMERICAN 
NATURAL HISTORY 
By Charies R. Eastman 
HE following notes concerning the 
first mention in literature of 
various American animals have 
been suggested by the discussion which 
has been running in Nature during the 
past twelve-month concerning early ref- 
erences to the opossum and kangaroo. 
The article may serve as a sequel also 
to one on “The Beaver Group”’ by Dr. 
F. A. Lucas, in the JourRNAL of the 
American Museum for March, 1913, 
and to two or three that have appeared 
in Science and Popular Science Monthly, 
by Dr. E. W. Gudger, on early Brazilian 
naturalists. 
It is surprising how rapidly informa- 
tion accumulated regarding the natural 
history of the New World directly after 
Columbus 
voluminous writer, is proved by his 
Journal and letters to have been a keen 
its discovery. himself, a 
observer of the strange aspects of nature 
and man in the regions discovered by 
him. To the Admiral we owe the first 
account of the alligator, iguana, hutia, 
manatee, native dog of the West Indies, 
and numerous species of birds, trees and 
The letter of Dr. 
accompanied Columbus, and those of 
Vespucci! are also full of interesting 
plants. Chanea, who 
natural history details. 
1 Vespucci’s first letter (1497) was republished 
in facsimile by Varnhagen in 1893, having for 
frontispiece a design by Stradanus dating from 
about 1580, in which various South American 
animals are represented. Mention occurs in this 
letter of the iguana, puma and ocelot from the 
coast of Tampico. Dr. Chanca’s letter has re- 
cently been translated and edited by Fernandez 
de Ybarra, in Smithson. Misc. Coll., 1906, and 
Journ. Amer. Med. Assoc. for same year. 
Cut at the left above, macaw after pre-Colum- 
bian Maya codex; at the right, Central American 
parrot, as shown in Maya codex. 
1504 there was published 
in Venice a little collection? of voyages 
entitled Libretio de tutia la Navigatione 
As early as 
de Re de Spagna, de la Isole et Terreni 
Novamente Trovati. The matter in this 
Libretto was taken over into the famous 
Paesi Novamente Retrovati, a larger col- 
lection edited by Fracanzio da Montal- 
boddo, and printed in 1507, ’08, 713 and 
"19. In the Libretto and also in this 
second collection are found the first 
printed description of the opossum. 
The Oceani Decas (Decade of the 
Ocean) of Peter Martyr was published 
in 1511, and this and succeeding Decades 
are enlivened by interesting digressions 
on the natural history of the new conti- 
nent. Here occurs the first mention in 
literature of the potato and the earliest 
recognizable description of the tapir. 
This author’s statement that a live 
opossum, captured with her litter by the 
Pinzons in 1500, was exhibited in Gran- 
ada, Spain, is confirmed by a Latin 
inscription which accompanies a figure 
intended to represent this animal in the 
Waldseemiiller world-map of 1516, and 
in three succeeding editions of Ptolemy’s 
Geography. 
A reproduction of a portion of the map 
known as T'abula Terre Nove in the Ptol- 
emy of 1522 showing this same figure and 
a Brazilian cannibal scene, is given by 
Edward Everett Hale in Winsor’s Narra- 
tive and Critical History of 
(vol. ii, p. 598). Gesner and Topsell 
also take their illustrations of the so- 
America 
2 Peter Martyr is thought to have been the 
author of the Latin original, and Angelo Trivi- 
giano the translator and editor of this pioneer 
work. 
349 
