Clinton's introductory discourse. 63 



The secret departure of many species of birds has introduced much 

 fable into ornithology. It is time that the submersion of swallows, 

 and the fascination of serpents, should be banished from our natural, and 

 the Welch nations of Indians from our civil, history. In the midst of 

 winter, when occasional mild weather occurs, birds that were supposed 

 to have left the country, suddenly reappear. This has induced a belief 

 that many of them remain in a torpid state during the winter, in the 

 fissures of rocks, or in hollow trees; all these indications ought to be 

 carefully watched. Buifon says, that of three hundred species of quad- 

 rupeds, and one thousand five hundred of birds, man has selected but 

 nineteen or twenty, and that only nine species of birds have been 

 domesticated. He is greatly mistaken in the number of species, although 

 he is nearly right in other respects.* The list of useful domestic birds may 

 be greatly increased. The Canada goose and the turkey, it is believed, 

 have been added by America: the black duck, brant, wood duck, and 

 prairie hen, have, in many instances, been tamed, and why might not teal 

 and grouse be also domesticated? Our stock of domestic fowl might also 

 be increased by the Peruvian hen and the hoco or curasso of South 

 America, which is about the size of a turkey ; the flesh of both is much 

 esteemed ; and why might not our useful wild birds be augmented by 

 importing from Europe the red-legged partridge, and the pheasant : it 

 is supposed that pheasants were brought into Europe by the Argonauts, 

 one thousand two hundred and fifty years before the christian sera, 

 from the banks of the Phasis, a river in Colchis in Asia Minor.f 



Our ichthyology has received little attention. Dr. Mitchill, to whom 

 science is greatly indebted, has recently published a small work on the 



* See Note W. t See Note X. 



