GILPIX— ON NOVa';SCGTIAN MA30IALS. 65 



ruminants. Our last arrival was the wolf, endeavouring in vain 

 to rehabit bis old domains, to Tvbom tbe skunk and tbe raccoon 

 alone give precedence. Ail these coming in to us from the wild 

 region of the Cobeqnid bills. Of introduced species, with the 

 exception of the mice, we have only the horse (E. Caballus), and 

 the rabbit, (^Lepus Cuniculus). Both these species have been 

 allowed to assume their feral state on Sable Island, a desert 

 island about ninety miles south-east Nova Scotia, in the Atlantic 

 Ocean. Whilst the rabbits in fifty years have returned to one 

 common silver-grey tint with white collars, it is curious to 

 remark how the horse in one hundred and fifty years, the pro- 

 duce no doubt of the Xew England stock, has returned to the 

 habits and form of the primal stock, or wild horse of antiquity, 

 and reproduced all varieties of color, not only the bay, black 

 and chesuut, but the rarer colors of piebald, duns, isabella's, 

 blue duns, and duns witli striped legs and black lists down the 

 back. 



We have so far adhered in our paper this evening to strict 

 classification, using the modern acceptation of genus which, 

 unlike the older naturalists' usage, seems to class animals by 

 their differences, rather than by their similarities, (Linnaeus 

 classing the elk with the stag, considering his many points of 

 similarity ; H. Smith considering only his differences, classing 

 him by himself). Is' it too much to say that the modern system 

 of sub-genus has become too fine and wire-drawn, and oper- 

 ates unfavourabl}^ to exact knowledge of the habits of the 

 animals themselves, making a speciality of Avhat should be 

 open to all lovers of nature. However this may be, there is 

 another way of studj'ing our fauna f;ir more agreeable, as it 

 connects us with geology and geography, and allows specula- 

 tion instead of exact measurement and minute detail. This is 

 to take the order of their presumed appearance on our part of the 

 globe. Our Province glaciated to the summits of its hills and 

 then slowly emerging amid towering ice-bergs, and washed by 

 frozen seas, must have first attracted those animals which live by 

 the sea, since this half frozen ocean had long before been floored 

 by moUusks, upon whom countless series of fish had for ages fed 

 and died. The Cetfle then, as they do now on the Arctic 



