ANIMALS OF NORTH AMERICA. 
9 
to intermingle so much of what is barely possible with the 
little attested, as to give an air of doubt to the whole. We 
are nearer the truth when we admit our ignorance, than when 
we embrace an erroneous hypothesis ; for we have but to 
learn in the first case when the truth is developed ; while in 
the latter, we have to unlearn before we can learn. This 
experience always proves to be the greatest difficulty to a 
learner. Many of the narratives of the older naturalists are 
little more than amusing fables. To deduce the leading 
characteristics of an animal from a minute investigation of its 
physical construction, to watch its habits in its native haunts, 
formed no part of the care of those who compiled books on 
natural history a century ago. Whatever was imperfectly 
known was immediately made the subject of some tale of 
wonder. 
Some writers, unable to ascertain for themselves, accept and 
publish to the world the information given by trappers and 
travellers, in which case many errors may have arisen from 
the ignorance of the observer ; though in addition to these 
errors of ignorance, there must be added a worse evil — viz : 
the love of the marvellous, which has contributed largely to 
false accounts. Godman, the well-known American Natural- 
ist, recites an instance of this, where a trader, having given 
a most fictitious account of the habits of the beaver to an 
ardent enquirer, who carefully noted all down, remarked on 
the departure of the latter, that, being so annoyed by a con- 
stant enquirer, he had chosen to get rid of him by this method, 
viz : appearing to tell him all he knew ! Such errors as this 
are great drawbacks to accurate students, and delude the 
minds of learners. The injury which the mind receives from 
this source is scarcely appreciable, and the false notions we 
form concerning the plans of Nature, are not easily afterwards 
eradicated. 
According to Buffon, the fauna of America is characterized 
by inferiority in size when compared with that of the old 
