70 



Botany, have been very few, those engaged in the investigation 

 of the Zoology of the State have been still fewer. The meagre 

 account of our animals contained in Dr. Williams' valuable history 

 of Vermont, until very recently embraced almost all that had ever 

 been published respecting them. But that work was written at a 

 very early period, when the subject of Natural History, in this 

 country, was little understood, and when an examination of the 

 State, to which it relates, had hardly been commenced. In that 

 work, (although the attempt to assign to our animals and vegeta- 

 bles their scientific names, was a failure,) he collected together 

 from the hunters and early settlers, much that is valuable in re- 

 lation to the magnitude, habits, (fee., of our larger animals, and 

 saved from oblivion many facts which are no where else pre- 

 served. 



After the publication of Dr. Williams' history, the last edition 

 of which was issued more than forty years ago, nothing further 

 was published respecting the Natural History of the State, ex- 

 cepting a catalogue of Vermont minerals by Prof. Frederick Hall, 

 and a catalogue of the plants of Mildlebury and vicinity, by Dr. 

 Edwin James, previous to the publication of my Natural and 

 Civil History of the State, in 1842. Having myself, devoted 

 considerable attention to the vertebrata of the State, and being 

 kindly aided in the department of botany by the late William 

 Oakes, Esq., of Ipswich, Mass., and in conchology by Prof. C. B. 

 Adams, then of Middlebury College, with occasional assistance in 

 other branches of zoology, kindly rendered by members of this 

 Society, I was enabled to embrace in that work nearly all that was 

 then known of the Natural History of the State. Since the 

 issue of that work, much more has been done, and many facts 

 accumulated, which have not been made public, and still the in- 

 vestigation of some branches of the Natural History of Vermont 

 is not yet commenced. 



Quadrupeds and birds possess such facilities for locomotion, 

 that they could not be expected in Vermont to differ much from 

 those of the neighboring States. The number of species of our 

 native quadrupeds, which have been carefully determined, is, 

 at least, 45 ; and of birds more than 160 species have been ascer- 

 tained. 



Our largest native quadruped, the Moose, which grew to the 

 size of an Ox, and whose flesh furnished to our early settlers an 



