^SfS^^SL^ ©IF S3^^® JBIg 



OR 



OF NEW GENERA AND SPECIES OF ANIMALS, PLANTS, &c. 

 DISCOVERED IN NORTH AMERICA: 



BFC. S. RdFlJ^ESqUE, 



Professor of Botany and Natural History in Transylvania University, at Lexington 



in Kentucky, and member of several Learned Societies in the 



United States and in Europe, &c. 



EXERTION UNFOLDS AND INCREASES KNOWLEDGE. 



¥«st Annual Kucoibex, loi: iS2,0. 



DEDICATED TO DS. W. E, LEACH, 



or THE BRITISH MUSEUM, rojTOOK. 



EVER since 1816, I had issued proposals for publishing a Periodical Work un- 

 der the title of Annals of Nature : various circumstances have prevented me from 

 carrying the original plan into execution, and have now induced me to publish it 

 annually or casually (instead of quarterly) in the present form, without confining 

 myself to any particular time, nor extent ; but giving a preference to my own 

 unpublished discoveries and those of my friends, over those of other Naturalists 

 and Botanists. Every number shall form a peculiar tract, which shall be sold sepa- 

 rate. 



The difficulty of ascertaining sometimes whether my discoveries are totally 

 new, will not prevent me from offering those which I consider such. If a few 

 shall afterwards prove otherwise, the blame, if any, must lay with those European 

 compilers, who give us now and then their bulky, costly & learned Cyclopedias, 

 Dictionaries of Natural History, and Systems, without following the wise linnean 

 plan of detailing all the former discoveries. This is particularly the case with 

 Zoologists, who from the time of the compilation of Gmelin, published about 30 

 years ago, have never thought of giving us a new and complete description of all 

 the animals discovered since ; nor has any complete account of our own animals e- 

 ver been published. In such a state of the science, & considering the difficulty of 

 procuring many European works on this continent, even by applying to their au- 

 thors, I shall not be prevented from publishing my new species, because it may 

 happen that one out of fifty may be previously noticed in some costly and inacces- 

 sible work. I shall however be ready, at all times, to correct any such, or other 

 unavoidable errors and oversights. 



I have often felt the need of laying before the learned public, and in a concise 

 and linnean shape, my numerous discoveries, which are accumulating everyyear; 

 being often unable to find a proper vehicle, I have been compelled to avail my- 

 self of magazines and ephemerous publications, which seldom meet their eyes. 

 When I have sent memoirs and tracts for publication to the learned societies of 

 London, Paris, New- York and Philadelphia, they are only published after many 

 years delay, or rejected when they contradict the views of some favorite mem- 

 ber. If I propose publishing my works in Europe, they are refused by the pub- 

 lishers, because the author is not one of the celebrated professors of Paris, Lon- 

 don or Edinburgh. Meantime I have lost by a shipwreck the labor of many years, 

 and the description and figures of one thousand new animals and plants. Every 



