INTRODUCTION: x1x 
of much interest, made at Fort Nelson on the River of the Mountains, 
a branch of the Mackenzie, was forwarded to us by Mr. Macpherson, 
‘together with some valuable specimens obtained in the same quarter 
‘by Mr. Smith, chief factor of that district. Mr. Isbister also had the 
‘kindness to prepare for us a copious collection of birds at Cumberland- 
-house. These were not, however, the only channels through which the 
Specimens described in the following pages were obtained. I have had 
ample opportunities for studying the specimens brought home by Sir 
‘Edward Parry, on his several expeditions; and much information was 
ikewise derived from frequent visits to the museum of the Hudson’s 
‘Bay Company, and from repeated examinations of the specimens im- 
ported by that Company from their posts on James’s Bay, on the 
‘Columbia, and in New Caledonia, and eeeguies by them to the 
Zoological Society and British Museum. 
After this brief exposition of the various sources from whence the 
specimens were derived, I proceed to give a concise general view of the 
nature of the different tracts of the country, whose ferine inhabitants 
form the subject of the following pages. The most remarkable phy- 
sical feature of the northern parts of America, is the great Mountain 
Ridge, which is continued under the appellation of the Rocky Mouwn- 
tains*, in a north-north-west direction from New Mexico, to the 70th 
degree of latitude, where it terminates within view of the Arctic Sea, 
to the westward of the mouth of the Mackenzie River. The course of 
this chain is tolerably straight, and its altitude, though various in 
different places, is everywhere far superior to that of any other moun- 
tains existing in the same parallel of the American continent. Like 
the Andes, of which they seem to be a prolongation, the Rocky Moun- 
tains lie much nearer to the Pacific coast than to the eastern shore of 
America, and they give rise to several very large rivers. Over an 
elevated portion of the chain, extending from the 40th to the 55th 
degree of latitude, are spread the upper branches and sources of the 
Columbia, which falls into the Pacific in the 46th parallel. If the 
principal arms of this river had not a very circuitous course, the nar- 
* Pennant names them the “‘ Shining Mountains.” 
