4 INTRODUCTION. 



The first discoverers of America were generally ad- 

 venturers, drawn thither by the thirst of gold, while 

 her historians spoke rather of the minerals which 

 she concealed in her bosom, the rich productions of 

 her soil, the habits and the manners of the natives, 

 than of such animals as immediately surrounded 

 them. If they endeavoured to penetrate her forests, 

 the aborigines fled from the thunder of their guns; 

 if they roused, in her savannas, the nimble elk, 

 the caraboa, jaguar, or racoon, they, swift of foot, 

 and readily alarmed by any unusual sound, found a 

 retreat amid the luxuriance of their native fast- 

 nesses, thus precluding the possibility of ascertain- 

 ing either specific or numerical varieties. 



The natives, too, as they required not the aid, 

 had subjugated few of the animals which surrounded 

 them; and hence it was not surprising that the first 

 historians of America, men whose sources of infor- 

 mation were extremely limited, should represent the 

 four-footed population as inferior to those of the 

 countries with which they were acquainted. 



But in proportion to the increase of geographical 

 knowledge, and the progress of zoological science, in 

 the older portions of the globe, has been the re- 

 search of naturalists in the new. Men of very 

 different pretensions from the earlier discoverers of 

 America, have made themselves acquainted with 

 the animals of either continent; as unknown coun- 

 tries opened to their view, unknown species were 

 found to inhabit them. Even at the present day, 

 and, notwithstanding the improved state of know- 

 ledge in regard to the earth's surface, there is reason 

 to conjecture that zoology is still in its infancy, espe- 



