106 ANIMALS OF NORTH AMERICA. 



which have quite assumed the original nature of their species, 

 in the solitudes and canebrakes of the sparsely inhabited dis- 

 tricts of the sunny South. 



The order Cetacea (Whales) though rightly succeeding 

 here, is reserved for another series ; for though Mammalia 

 in the true sense of the word, not respiring water like true 

 fishes, but rising to the surface to breathe the atmosphere, 

 and being, withal, warm-blooded animals, yet their habits and 

 form are so pisciverous, that the series comprising fish and 

 reptiles will commence with this order it being, as it were, 

 the connecting link between them and the Mammals. 



Having enumerated now the different species, we must be 

 struck to find that each animal, with the exception of those 

 peculiar to the country, differs from its European congener, 

 though in some instances so slightly as scarcely to be noticed. 

 There is a singular coincidence between the elevation of 

 temperature and the degree of zoological perfection. The 

 genera of latitudes are often representatives, but never 

 identical. Science is developing the various branches of 

 Natural History more fully than ever it before attempted, 

 and each day, light is thrown upon some peculiarity which 

 has hitherto escaped observation. So far as regards the 

 different titles of the same animal, we leave to nomenclators 

 their disputations about what DeKay has happily termed, 

 " the barren honors of a synonyme ;" who, if they make no 

 addition to our already gathered information, at least multiply 

 stories, and republish their own names. The letters and 

 anecdotes collected by the gallant explorers of the remotest 

 districts, and the dwellers on the outmost frontiers of the Far 

 West, are rapidly and surely adding to our knowledge of 

 those parts ; for, to their credit, and to the honor of the 

 West Point Military Institution, nine-tenths of all the correct 

 information we possess of the geography, geology, topography, 

 and natural history of the farther territories and districts, 

 apart from mere fable, comes from its members and its 



