2 
INTRODUCTORY REMARKS. 
of specimens presented by him to the Museum at Haslar Hospital. The 
specimens of the Mammalia brought home are, as might be expected, fewer 
than those of the other classes of animals. Captain Cook mentions, that 
during one month’s stay in Nootka Sound, the only quadrupeds seen by his 
crews were two or three racoons, martins, and squirrels, though he obtained 
the skins of many other species from the natives ; and Kotzebue, who passed 
a whole season at the Russian American Company’s settlement of Sitcka, in 
Norfolk Sound, obtained specimens only of the black bear, a fox, a stag, the 
beaver, two species of bat, and a seal. The skins placed in my hands for 
examination by Captain Beechey belong to the arctic fox, common fox, lynx, 
land otter, sea otter, musk rat, Parry’s marmot, Beechey’s marmot, Collie’s 
squirrel, the polar hare, and a bat — all except the last one obtained on the 
west coast of North America. As our knowledge of the Zoology of that coast, 
from California northwards, has been derived from expeditions of discovery, 
and the details are scattered through a number of works, it appears to us 
that the most useful plan we can adopt is, to give a general list of the 
Mammalia known to belong to its Fauna, with detailed accounts of the new 
species. 
Melville Hospital, 
Chatham, March 1 st } 1835 . 
