1842.] A Monogragh of the Species of Lynx. 755 



The above are the only described species of Lynx — putting aside the 

 Caracal — in which, I confess, that I have any confidence, though several 

 others have been indicated by M. Raffinesque as inhabitants of North 

 America, which, at most, I suspect, were varieties of the two last.* 

 According to Dr. Richardson, the late Mr. Douglas was of opinion 

 " that there are more than one undescribed animal of this genus in- 

 habiting the countries bordering on the Columbia. The skins pro- 

 cured in that quarter are generally carried to the Chinese market, 

 without passing into the hands of European furriers. " The following 

 passage, however, from a paper on the fur trade, published in Silliman's 

 'American Journal of Science,' (XXV, 311,) will excite surprise and 

 doubt that any animal so conspicuous should still remain unknown 

 to naturalists. " The fur-countries, from the Pacific Coast to the Rocky 

 Mountains, are now occupied, (exclusive of private combinations and in- 

 dividual trappers and traders,) by the Russians, on the north-west, 

 from Behring's Strait to Queen Charlotte's Island, in north latitude 53 

 degrees, and by the Hudson's Bay Company thence, south of the Co- 

 lumbia River; from which Ashley's Company, and that under Capt. 

 Bonneville, take the remainder of the region to the Coast of California. 

 Indeed the whole compass, from the Mississipi to the Pacific Ocean, 

 is tracked in every direction. The mountains and forests, from the 

 Arctic Sea to the Gulf of Mexico, are threaded, through every maze, 

 by the hunter. Every river and tributary stream, from the Columbia 

 to the Rio del Norte, and from the Mackenzie to the Colorado of 

 the West, from their head springs to their junction, are searched and 

 trapped for Beaver. 



" Almost all the American furs, which do not belong to the Hudson's 

 Bay Company, find their way to New York, and are either distributed 

 thence for home consumption, or sent to foreign markets. The Hud- 



* It is well known that the morbid eagerness of this eccentric Siculo-American 

 naturalist to distinguish himself as the discriminator of overlooked species of animals 

 and plants amounted, latterly, to decided mania, insomuch that the conductors of 

 different American scientific works to which he sent his papers were compelled, at 

 length, to refrain from giving publication to his frequent and voluminous contribu- 

 tions. Not even the German ornithologist, Brehm, went the length which M. Raf- 

 finesque ultimately did in regarding every trivial variation as indicative of specific 

 distinctness. See a biographical memoir of M. Raffinesque in one of the American 

 scientific periodicals (I do not now remember whichj, appended to the announcement 

 of his demise.— E. B. 



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