44 



uable information in respect to the occurrence and relative abundance 

 of the larger species, testing of course the accuracy of their accounts 

 by the independent observations and reports of different observers, 

 and by my own experience and general knowledge of the subject. 

 Respecting some of the smaller rodents, and the insectivores gener- 

 ally, I could obtain no satisfactory information, and they are conse- 

 quently omitted from the lists. 



Every naturalist is of course aware of the difficulties that one meets 

 with in seeking to learn something of the mammalian fauna of a 

 locality, and how inadequate a few weeks' reconnoissance is for its 

 satisfactory exploration. Owing to the nocturnal habits of some 

 species and the reclusiveness of others, only a comparatively small 

 proportion of the whole are readily observed or obtained, patience 

 and strategy and much time being requisite for the discovery and cap- 

 ture of the others. While a few weeks of diligent collecting may be 

 sufficient to afford one a tolerable idea of the character and variety of 

 the bird life occurring at a particular season at a given locality, many 

 months are necessary to give one an equal familiarity with its mam- 

 malian life. On the other hand, one can learn at second hand much 

 more respecting mammals than birds, the species of the former being 

 so much fewer and in the main so diverse with each other, but more 

 especially because all the larger mammals are objects of special in- 

 terest to the hunter and trapper, either for their furs, their flesh, or 

 as enemies, and whose pursuit is attractive and meritorious in pro- 

 portion to its dangers and difficulties. Hence not only is the travel- 

 ling naturalist compelled to consult those skilled in woodcraft for 

 much information he has not time himself otherwise to obtain, but 

 he can do so with a certainty of results attainable in respect to 

 scarcely any other class of animals. 



The collection of mammals obtained on this expedition contains 

 much valuable material for special investigation, including, as it 

 does, large series of skeletons of nearly all the ruminants and of sev- 

 eral of the rodents and carnivores. As the results obtained by the 

 examination of this and other collections of the mammals of the West 

 are reserved for a series of special papers already in preparation (in- 

 cluding monographic revisions of the families Leporiclce and Scturidas'), 

 it has not been deemed advisable to make the following lists in any 

 degree revisionary, the nomenclature adopted being essentially that 

 of the author's previous papers. 





