48 
ISLAND LIFE. 
[part I. 
quite so conspicuous but nevertheless very important. We have 
first, three peculiar genera of moles, one of which, the star- 
nosed mole, is a most extraordinary creature, quite unlike 
anything else. Then there are three genera of the weasel 
family, including the well-known skunk (Mephitis), all quite 
different from Eastern forms. Then we come to a peculiar 
family of carnivora, the racoons, very distinct from anything in 
Europe or Asia ; and in the "Rocky Mountains we find the 
prong-horn antelope (Antilocapra) and the mountain goat of 
the trappers (Aplocerus), both peculiar genera. Coming to 
the rodents we find that the mice of America differ in some 
dental peculiarities from those of the rest of the world, and 
thus form several distinct genera; the jumping mouse (Xapus) 
is a peculiar form of the jerboa family, and then we come to the 
pouched rats (Geomyidse) a very curious family consisting of 
four genera and nineteen species, peculiar to North America, 
though not confined to the Nearctic region. The prairie dogs 
(Cynomys), the tree porcupine (Erethizon), the curious sewellel 
(Haploodon), and the opossum (Didelphys) complete the list of 
peculiar mammalia which distinguish the northern region of 
the new world from that of the old. We must add to these 
peculiarities some remarkable deficiencies. The Nearctic region 
has no hedgehogs, nor wild pigs, nor dormice, and only one wild 
sheep in the Rocky Mountains as against twenty species of 
sheep and goats in the Palsearctic region. 
In birds also the similarities to our own familiar songsters 
first strike us, though the differences are perhaps really greater 
than in the quadrupeds. We see thrushes and wrens, tits and 
finches, and what seem to be warblers and flycatchers and 
starlings in abundance; but a closer examination shows the 
ornithologist that what he took for the latter are really quite 
distinct, and that there is not a single true flycatcher of the 
family Muscicapidae, or a single starling of the family Sturnidse 
in the whole continent, while there are very few true warblers 
(Sylviidae), their place being taken by the very distinct families 
Mniotiltidae or wood-warblers, and Yireonidae or greenlets. In 
like manner the flycatchers of America belong to the totally 
distinct family of tyrant-birds, Tyrannidse, and those that look 
