(JFariu Botanical SHritcrs. 
1 1 
Canada in 1624, and fpent two years in the country of the 
Hurons; publishing his "Grand Voyage du Pays des Hu- 
rons " in 1632, and enlarging it in 1636 to " Hiftoire du 
Canada et Voyages que les Freres Mineurs recollets y ont 
faits pour la Converlion des Infidelles," &c., in four books; 
of which the third treats of natural hiftory, 1 and is cited 
by Meffrs. Audubon and Bachmann (Vivip. Quadrupeds 
of N.A., pajjini) for a good part of our more common 
and noticeable Mammalia. Something confiderable thus 
got to be known of marine animals of all forts, and of 
quadrupeds. But it was much longer before our birds — 
if we except a very few, as the blue-jay and the turkey — 
came to the fcientific knowledge of Europeans; and this 
remark is, as might be expected, at leaft equally true of 
our reptiles. 
Quite as accidental, doubtlefs, was the beginning of 
European acquaintance with our plants. There are, in- 
deed, traces of the knowledge of a few at a very early 
period. Dalechamp, Clufius, Lobel, and Alpinus — all 
authors of the fixteenth century — rauft be cited occafion- 
ally in any complete fynonymy of our Flora. The Indian- 
corn, the fide-faddle flower {Sarracenia purpurea and 
S. Jlava), the columbine, the common milk-weed {Af- 
clcpias Cornutt), the everlafting {Antennaria margarita- 
cea), and the Arbor vile?, were known to the juft-men- 
tioned botanifts before 1600. Sarracenia flava was fent 
either from Virginia, or poffibly from fome Spanifh monk 
Biographie Universelle, in loco. 
