22 AMEBICAN GAME. 



Cuvier and Richardson, and Audubon's stupendous 

 work are not attainable by general readers, or even 

 ordinary writers of cities ; to those of the country they 

 are nitterly inaccessible but to Encyclopaedists, and to 

 men who sit down to reproduce great works on Natural 

 History, who choose to consult them, they are perfectly 

 and easily open ; and there is no shadow of excuse for 

 those who profess to teach others, yet refuse to learn, 

 themselves. 



Had the writer of the above worthless trash thought fit 

 to compare Dr. Kichardson's description of the Cariboo, 

 which it seems he had read and which, like all that 

 singularly able naturalist's descriptions, is doubtless as 

 minute as correct with Cuvier's description of the 

 Reindeer, he might have pronounced as easily as he 

 could whether two and two makes four or five, whether 

 the American and Europe- Asiatic deer are identical or 

 different. Godman, in his " Quadrupeds of North 

 America," though a little more definite than Dr. Leiber, 

 is scarce less bold and brief. Dr. Dekay, whose la- 

 mented life has recently been brought to an untimely 

 close, though he suspected it to be a denizen of 

 New York, was not fully assured of the fact, and there- 

 fore has not, I think, described it in his Fauna of that 

 State. 



I have myself, unfortunately, no immediate access to 

 either Richardson or Cuvier ; nor even to any well estab- 

 lished work on the Animals of Northern Europe. But 



