REPLY TO MR. THOMPSON'S NOTE. 283 



any of its tributai'ies flows through Manitoba, he doubtless means by 

 the term "Mississippi valley" the great central basin of the conti- 

 nent, a large portion of which is drained into the Mississippi river. 

 He ought also to be aware that the south-western jjeninsula of 

 Ontario, as regards both its fauna and flora, approaches more nearly 

 to the central basin than to any other part of America — in fact, from 

 a biological point of view, may be said to form part of it. Geomys 

 btirsarius was originally described by Shaw in the Linneean Trans- 

 actions in 1800, and his statement regarding its habitat is not that 

 quoted by Mr. Thompson, but : " Tliis quadruped was tak^n by some 

 Indian hunters in the upper parts of interior Canada, and seat down 

 to Quebec." (Linn. Trans., vol. v., 1800, p. 228 and tab. 8.) The 

 fur trade of the West was then in the hands of the North-West 

 Company, &,c., who brought their furs in hales to Montreal and 

 shipped them to foreign markets, so that it ai)pears improbable that 

 the skin was brought loose from west of Lake Superior. I have, 

 therefore, interpreted IShaw's statement as meaning Eastern i-ather 

 than Western Canada. 



VII. For my " surprising statement " as to the northerly range of 

 the black squirrel ( Sciurus Carolinensis) I have no less an authority 

 than Sir John Richardson, who states that specimens of his *S'. niger, 

 which is a synonym for this species, had been sent in to him both 

 from Penetang and Fort William. 



On the question of the Indian names of the different species Mr. 

 Thompson complains that no special alphabet is used, whei-eas I state 

 in the Catalogue that the vowels are given the Continental sounds, 

 and, being a member of the staff of the Canadian Geological Survey, 

 I have used the simple alphabet that has been u.sed by that corps in 

 their reports for years past. That no marks are used representing 

 the lengths of the vowels is a matter of considerable regret to me. 

 The manuscript sent to the printer, which by the way is still in my 

 possession, has the lengths of any doubtful vowels marked through- 

 out, as in Appendix IV. to my Report on Northern Alberta ; and, 

 although in the Algonquin languages each syllable is accented or not 

 according to the length of its vowel sound, accents wei'e occasionally 

 inserted for the greater convenience of pronunciation. These marks 

 have in some way been omitted in printing. 



