FOREST AND STREAM OCTOBER, 1920 
THOMAS JEFFERSON— NATURALIST 
THE WRITER OF THE DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE TOOK A KEEN INTEREST IN 
NATURAL HISTORY AND WROTE ACCURATELY AND ENTERTAININGLY ON THE SUBJECT 
W HILE the entire world knows that 
Colonel Roosevelt was an ardent 
naturalist, but few are aware 
that another President of the United 
States, Thomas Jefferson, was also an 
enthusiastic student of natural history. 
The statesmanship of Jefferson gave us 
the Lewis and Clark expedition ; and that 
expedition left us the pioneer record of 
the big game of the West. In his letter 
of instructions to Captain Lewis, Jeffer- 
son wrote that, among the “objects 
worthy of notice will be the animals of 
the country generally, and especially 
those not known to the United States.” 
Carrying out these instructions, Cap- 
tain Lewis described, with accuracy, the 
animals observed by the party, including 
several not theretofore known to exist, 
or very imperfectly known, such as the 
grizzly bear, black-tailed deer, mule deer, 
and mountain goat. 
In Jefferson’s “Notes on the State of 
Virginia” (written in 1781-2), the chap- 
ters devoted to the quadrupeds of Amer- 
ica and Europe disclose that he was 
deeply interested in, and thoroughly in- 
formed upon, his subject. A reading of 
these chapters affords a complete ex- 
planation for the presence, in the jour- 
nals of Lewis and Clark, of so much ma- 
terial respecting natural history. Jeffer- 
son was a lover of nature; Lewis was 
his Secretary while he was President, 
and was familiar with Jefferson’s keen 
interest in the subject. Lewis must have 
known that his painstaking research in 
natural history would please him. 
The early naturalists were at sea upon 
the question as to whether the North 
American animal, commonly called the 
elk, was, in fact, an elk. In attempting 
to clear up the confusion existing at that 
early day, with reference to the species 
of this animal, Jefferson advanced the 
opinion that the large deer consisted of 
three, if not four, distinct species. He 
classified them as the moose, the caribou, 
the flat-horned elk, and the round-horned 
elk. But he was by no means satisfied 
with his classification. He was in doubt 
as to the correctness of the name for the 
round-horned elk; he writes that, should 
this animal, “though possessing so near- 
ly the characters of the elk, be found to 
be the same with the Cerf d’ Ardennes 
or Brandhirtz of Germany, still there will 
remain the three species first enumera- 
ted.” In separating the moose, caribou, 
and flat-horned elk into three species, 
he was in error. The moose and flat- 
horned elk are the same animal. In view 
of the fact that the naturalists of the old 
By HENRY BANNON 
world, and such a thorough and versatile 
man as Thomas Jefferson, incorrectly 
spoke of the Cervus canadensis as an elk, 
it is not surprising that this term be- 
came of such universal application that 
efforts to substitute the name of wapiti 
have not been commonly successful. 
T O illustrate the painstaking care 
with which the writer of the Dec- 
laration of Independence distin- 
guished between the true elk (the moose) 
and the wapiti, an extract from his 
“Notes” is reproduced: 
“I have made an elk with round or 
cylindrical horns an animal of America, 
and peculiar to it; because I have seen 
many of them myself, and more of their 
horns; and because I can say from the 
best of information, that, in Virginia, 
this kind of elk has abounded much, and 
still exists in smaller numbers; and I 
could never learn that the palmated kind 
had been seen here at all. I suppose 
this confined to the more northern lati- 
tudes.” * 
“The descriptions of Theodat, Denys 
and La Honton, cited by Mons. de Buffon, 
under the article Elan [Danish, Eland, 
elk] authorize' the supposition that the 
flat-horned elk is found in the northern 
parts of America. It has not, however, 
extended to our latitudes. On the other 
hand, I could never learn that the round- 
horned elk has been seen further north 
than the Hudson River. This agrees 
with the former elk in its general char- 
acter, being, like that, when compared 
with a deer, very much larger, its ears 
longer, broader, and thicker in propor- 
tion, its hair much longer, neck and tail 
shorter, having a dewlap before the 
The giant snipe of South America 
breast, caruncula gutturalis Linnaei, a 
white spot often, if not always, of a foot 
diameter, on the hinder part of the but- 
tocks round the tail; its gait a trot, and 
attended with a rattling of the hoofs; 
but distinguished from that decisively 
by its horns, which are not palmated, but 
round and pointed. This is the animal 
described by Catesby as the Cervus ma- 
jor Americanus, the stag of America, 
le Cerf de I’Amerique. But it differs 
from the Cervus as totally as does the 
palmated elk from the dama, [a sub- 
genus of Cervus containing the fallow 
deer] and in fact seems to stand in the 
same relation to the palmated elk as the 
red deer does to the fallow. It has 
abounded in Virginia, has been seen, 
within my knowledge, on the eastern side 
of the Blue Ridge since the year 1765, 
is now common beyond those mountains, 
has been often brought to us and tamed, 
and its horns are in the hands of many. 
I should designate it as the “Alces 
Americanus comibus teretibus.” [The 
text in brackets is ours.] 
Jefferson was mistaken in classifying 
the wapiti as of the genus Alces; it is 
unfortunate that Catesby’s reference to 
the genus Cervus was not adopted. The 
people of their day knew far more of 
Jefferson than of Catesby and, quite nat- 
urally, accepted Jefferson’s classification. 
“Notes on Virginia” had a wide circula- 
tion and was in the homes of many of 
the pioneers. The cause for the mistake 
in naming the great deer of America an 
elk, is due to the fact that some early 
naturalist classified it as such. The 
cause for the widespread adoption of the 
improper designation is found in the ex- 
tensive circulation of Jefferson’s book, 
and his popularity with the people. 
R EADERS of Forest and Stream, 
who are interested in natural his- 
tory, may derive an evening’s plea- 
sure in reading “Notes on the State of 
Virginia.” The text discusses the influ- 
ence of heat and moisture upon the size 
of animals; prehistoric animal life; a 
comparison of the weights of the species 
of Europe and America. Vigorous issue 
is taken with many of the observations 
of Buffon. Though birds and insects are 
referred to, there is no thorough discus- 
sion of them. The honey bee, he says, 
is not a native of America, but was 
brought from Europe. The following is 
an interesting extract: 
“The bees have generally extended 
themselves into the country, a little in 
