106 
ANIMALS OF NORTH AMERICA. 
which have quite assumed the original nature of their species, 
in the solitudes and canebrakes of the sparsely inhabited dis- 
tricts of the sunny South. 
The order Cetacea (Whales) though rightly succeeding 
here, is reserved for another series ; for though Mammalia 
in the true sense of the word, — not respiring water like true 
fishes, but rising to the surface to breathe the atmosphere, — 
and being, withal, warm-blooded animals, yet their habits and 
form are so pisciverous, that the series comprising fish and 
reptiles will commence with this order — it being, as it were, 
the connecting link between them and the Mammals. 
Having enumerated now the different species, we must be 
struck to find that each animal, with the exception of those 
peculiar to the country, differs from its European congener, 
though in some instances so slightly as scarcely to be noticed. 
There is a singular coincidence between the elevation of 
temperature and the degree of zoological perfection. The 
genera of latitudes are often representatives, but never 
identical. Science is developing the various branches of 
Natural History more fully than ever it before attempted, 
and each day, light is thrown upon some peculiarity which 
has hitherto escaped observation. So far as regards the 
different titles of the same animal, we leave to nomenclators 
their disputations about what EeKay has happily termed, 
u the barren honors of a synonyme who, if they make no 
addition to our already gathered information, at least multiply 
stories, and republish their own names. The letters and 
anecdotes collected by the gallant explorers of the remotest 
districts, and the dwellers on the outmost frontiers of the Far 
West, are rapidly and surely adding to our knowledge of 
those parts ; for, to their credit, and to the honor of the 
West Point Military Institution, nine-tenths of all the correct 
information we possess of the geography, geology, topography, 
and natural history of the farther territories and districts, 
apart from mere fable, comes from its members and its 
