ANIMALS OF NORTH AMERICA. 9 



to intermingle so much of what is barely possible with the 

 little attested, as to give an air of doubt to the whole. We 

 are nearer the truth when Ave admit our ignorance, than when 

 we embrace an erroneous hypothesis ; for we have but to 

 learn in the first -case when the truth is developed ; while in 

 the latter, we have to unlearn before we can learn. This 

 experience always proves to be the greatest difficulty to a 

 learner. Many of the narratives of the older naturalists are 

 little more than amusing fables. To deduce the leading 

 characteristics of an animal from a minute investigation of its 

 physical construction, to watch its habits in its native haunts, 

 formed no part of the care of those who compiled books on 

 natural history a century ago. Whatever was imperfectly 

 known was immediately made the subject of some tale of 

 wonder. 



Some writers, unable to ascertain for themselves, accept and 

 publish to the world the information given by trappers and 

 travellers, in which case many errors may have arisen from 

 the ignorance of the observer ; though in addition to these 

 errors of ignorance, there must be added a worse evil viz : 

 the love of the marvellous, which has contributed largely to 

 false accounts. Godman, the well-known American Natural- 

 ist, recites an instance of this, where a trader, having given 

 a most fictitious account of the habits of the beaver to an 

 ardent enquirer, who carefully noted all down, remarked on 

 the departure of the latter, that, being so annoyed by a con- 

 stant enquirer, he had chosen to get rid of him by this method, 

 viz : appearing to tell him all he knew ! Such errors as this 

 are great drawbacks to accurate students, and delude the 

 minds of learners. The injury which the mind receives from 

 this source is scarcely appreciable, and the false notions we 

 form concerning the plans of Nature, are not easily afterwards 

 eradicated. 



According to Buffon, fas fauna of America is characterized 

 by inferiority in size when compared with that of the old 



