THE 



ANIMAL AND VEGETABLE PRODUCTIONS 



AMERICA. 



WHEN America was first discovered, her natural 

 historians did not scruple to assert that the principle 

 of life seemed less active than in the ancient conti- 

 nent. They maintained that, notwithstanding the 

 vast extent of the new world, its diversity of climate 

 and soil, of vegetable productions, and atmospheric 

 influence, the animal inhabitants were fewer in pro- 

 portion than those which peopled the other hemi- 

 sphere; that in the islands there were only four 

 kinds of quadrupeds, the largest of which did not 

 exceed in size a common rabbit; and that, through- 

 out the continent, although the variety was greater, 

 and the individuals proportionably numerous, yet the 

 number of distinct species was still extremely small. 

 They further asserted, that of two hundred different 

 kinds of animals spread over the surface of the earth, 

 only one-third existed in America at the time of 

 her discovery. Nor were they contented thus to 

 diminish the number of the native species ; they also 

 contended, and Buffon has industriously dissemi- 



