THE 



GREAT AND SMALL GAME OF EUROPE, 



WESTERN AND NORTHERN ASIA, 



AND AMERICA 



INTRODUCTION 



The area of which the game animals are described in this volume 

 comprises the whole of Europe, together with such portion of Asia north 

 of the Himalaya as does not come within the purview of the Great ami 

 Small Game of Iiulia, Tibet, and Burma, and both North and South 

 America. 



The faunas of Northern Europe and Asia on the one hand, and of the 

 more boreal portion of North America on the other hand, are so closely 

 related to one another that there is every reason for treating of them in the 

 same work. And in order to emphasise the closeness of this relationship 

 between the mammals of the northern districts of the eastern and western 

 hemispheres, and at the same time to avoid needless repetition, it has been 

 considered advisable to treat collectively in the first section of the work 

 of those species which, in the author's opinion, are common to the Old 

 and the New World. Doubtless some objections may be raised against this 

 mode of treatment. A case in point is, indeed, afforded by the extinction 

 of the musk-ox (which is properly a circumpolar animal) in the eastern 

 hemisphere, thus excluding this species from the first section of the work, 



