E EL 
AMERICAN NATURALIST. 
Vol. V.— SEPTEMBER, 1871.— No. 7. 
CREED DA 
NOTES ON THE RANGE OF SOME OF THE ANIMALS 
IN AMERICA AT THE TIME OF THE AR- 
RIVAL OF THE WHITE MEN.* 
BY W. J. HAYS. 
oo 
In the present condition of this country, since civilization has 
reached half way across the continent, few persons think of the 
prodigious changes that have taken place in the animal life in the 
comparatively short time since the discovery of the country. At 
that time the whole country was an unbroken wilderness, through 
which roamed the Indians and countless numbers of animals, many 
of which are now so rare as to be unknown to many and objects 
of curiosity to all. The moose which has now been driven almost 
entirely out of the United States, was then found as far south as 
New Amsterdam, now New York City. 
In Sir Martin Frobisher’s account of his second voyage to New- 
foundland and adjacent land, 1577, he says “ There is no wood at 
all, there is a great quantity of deer, their skins like unto asses, 
their heads or horns do far exceed any, both in length and breadth, 
their feet are great as oxen, which measured were seven or eight 
inches in breadth ; there are also hares, wolves, etc. ts 
Anthonie Parkhurst in 1578, says of the Island of Newfound- 
land, “ I saw mighty beasts, like to camels in greatness, and their 
eae ets TO 
* Recently read before the New York Lyceum of Natural History. 
— i ml ec E Re STEVIE onto ate Tat en ccaraa RE 
Entered according to Act of in the year 1871, by the PEABODY ACADEMY OF 
SCIENCE, in the Office of the p tite shper, Congress, at Washington. 
AMER. NATURALIST, VOL. V. 25 (887) 
