IO 
<£arls Botanical Mxittxs. 
from me. I am now return'd into my Native Countrey; 
and, by the providence of the Almighty and the bounty 
of my Royal Soveraigness, am difpofed to a holy quiet of 
ftudy and meditation for the good of my foul; and being 
bleffed with a tranfmentitation or change of mind, and 
weaned from the world, may take up for my word, non eft 
mortale quod opto" 
W e may fuppofe that a rude acquaintance with the 
more common or important animals of a new country will 
commence with the difcovery of it. Thus the beginning 
of European knowledge of the marine animals of Ameri- 
ca goes back, doubtlefs, to the earlieft fifheries of New- 
foundland; and thefe began almoft immediately after the 
difcovery of the continent. Game and peltry were alfo 
likely to come to the knowledge of the earlieft adven- 
turers; and fcattered among thefe, from the firft, were 
doubtlefs men capable of regarding the world of new 
obje6ts around them with an intelligent, if not a literate 
eye. Descriptions in this way, and Specimens, at length 
reached Europe, and became known to the learned there 
— to Gefner, Clufius, and Aldrovandus — from as early as 
the middle of the Sixteenth century. Without being 
naturalifts, fuch obfervers as Heriot in Virginia (1585-6) 
and Wood in Maffachufetts (1634) could give valuable 
accounts of what they faw; and more, it may well be, 
was due to the Chriftian mifRonaries, who accompanied or 
followed the adventurers, for the converfion of the heathen. 
Gabriel Sagard was one of thefe miffionaries, a recollet or 
reformed Francifcan monk, who went from Paris to 
