appointment, for the exprefs purpose of examining the fubjects of natural history. In this fact Pennant concurs with him. [Barrinton's Miscellanies.] The fame Kalm tells us that the black moofe, or renne of America is as high as a tall horse; and Catesby,t that it is about the bigness of a middle fized ox. The fame account of their fize has been given me by many who have seen them. But Monf. D'Aubenton fays that the renne of Europe is about the fize of a red deer. The weazel is larger in America than in Europe, as may be seen by comparing its dimenfions as reported by Monf. D'Aubenton§ and Kalm. The latter tells us, that the lynx, badger, red fox, and flying fquirrel, are the fame in America as in Europe: by which expreffion I understand, they are the fame in all material circumftances, in fize as well as others for if they were smaller, they would differ from the European. Our grey fox is, by Catesby's account,¶ little different in fize and shape from the European fox. I prefume he means the red fox of Europe, as does Kalm, where he fays,** that in fize they do not quite come up to our foxes.' For proceeding next to the red fox of America, he fays, they are entirely the fame with the European fort:' which fhows he had in view one European fort only, which was thę red, So that the refult of their testimony is, that the American *Ib. 233. . || I. 359. I. 48. 221. 251. II. 52. II. 78. ** I. 210. American grey fox is fomewhat lefs than the European red; which is equally true of the grey fox of Europe, as may be feen by comparing the meafures of the Count de Buffon and Monf. D'Aubenton.* The white bear of America is as large as that of Europe. The bones of the mammoth which have been found in America, are as lare as thofe found in the old world. It may be asked, why I infert the mammoth, as if it ftill exifted? I afk in return, why I should omit it as if it did not exist? Such is the economy of nature, that no inftance can be produced, of her having permitted any one race of her animals to become extinct; of her having formed any link in her great work so weak as to be broken. To add to this, the traditionary testimony of the Indians, that this animal ftill exifts in the northern and weftern parts of America, would be adding the light of a taper to that of the meridian fun. Those parts ftill remain in their aboriginal state, unexplored and undifturbed by us, or by others for us. He may as well exist there now, as he did formerly where we find his bones. If he be a carnivorous animal, as fome anatomists have conjectured, and the Indians affirm, his early retirement may be accounted for from the general deftruction of the wild game by the Indians, which commences in the first inftant of their connection with us, for the purpose of purchasing matchcoats, hatchets, and fire-locks, with their fkins. There * XXVII. 63. XIV. 19 Harris, II. 397. Buffon. Quad. IX. 1. . There remain then the buffaloe, red deer, fallow deer, wolf, roe, glutton, wild-cat, monax, vifion, hedgehog, marten, and water rat, of the comparative.fizes of which we have not fufficient teftimony. It does not appear that Meffrs. de Buffon and D'Aubenton have measured, weighed, or feen thofe of America. It is faid of fome of them, by fome travellers, that they are smaller than the European. But who were these travellers? Have they not been men of a very different description from thofe who have laid open to us the other three quarters of the world? Was natural hiftory the object, of their travels? Did they measure or weigh the animals they speak of? or did they not judge of them by fight, or perhaps even from report only? Were they acquainted with the animals of their own country, with which they undertake to compare them? Have they not been fo ignorant as often to mistake the fpecies? A true answer to these queftions would probably lighten their authority, fo as to *render it infufficient for the foundation of an hypoth efis. How unripe we yet are, for an accurate comparison of the animals of the two countries, will ap pear from the work of Monfieur de Buffon. The ideas we fhould have formed of the, fizes of fome animals, from the information he had received at his first -publications concerning them, are very different from what his fubfequent communications give us. And indeed his candor in this can never be too much praifed. One fentence of his book muft do him immor -tal tal honor. J'aime autante une perfonne qui me rel eve d'une erreur, qu'une autre qui m'apprend une verité, parce qu'en effect une erreur corrigée eft une verité." He feems to have thought the cabiai he firft examined wanted little of its full growth. • TE n'etoit pas encore tout-a-fait adulte.'t Yet he weighed but 4615. and he found afterwards, that thefe animals when full grown, weighed 100lb. He had fuppofed from the examination of a jaugar, faid to be two years old, which weighed but 16lb. 1202. tha when he fhould have acquired his full growth, he would not be larger than a middle fized dog. But a fubféquent accounts raifes his weight to 200lb. Further information, will doubtless, produce further corrections. The wonder is, not that there is yet fomething in this great work to correct, but that there is fo little. The refult of this view then is, that of 26. quadrupeds common to both countries, 7 are faid to be larger in America, 7 of equal fize, and 12 not fufficiently examined. So that the first table impeaches the first member of the affertion, that of the animals common to both countries, the American are smallest, et cela fans aucune exception.' It fhows it not just, in all the latitude in which its author has advanced it, and probably not to fuch a degree as to found a diftinction between the two countries. Proceeding to the second table, which arranges the # Quad. IX. 158. † XXV. 184. 1 Quad. IX. 132. XIX. 2. animals animals found in one of the two countries only, Monf. de Buffon obferves, that the tapir, the elephant of America, is but of the fize of a fmall cow. To preserve our comparison, I will add, that the wild boar, the elephant of Europe, is little more than half that fize. 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 fay, from the best information, that in Virginia, this kind of elk has abounded much, and still exifts in smaller numbers; and I could never learn that the palmated kind had been seen here at all. I fuppofe I fuppofe this confined to the more northern latitudes.* I have made our hare or rabbit The description of Theodat, Denys and La Honton, cited by Monf. de Buffon, under the article of Elan, authorize the supposition, that the flat-horned elk is found in the northern parts of America. It is 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's River. This agrees with the former elk in its general character, being, like that, when compared with a deer, very much larger, its ears longer, broader, and thicker in proportion, its hair much longer, neck and tail shorter, having a dewlap before the breast (caruncula gutturalis Linnæi) a white spot often, if not always, of a foot diameter, on the hinder part of the buttocks round the tail; its gait a trot, and attended with a rattling of the hoofs: but diftinguished from that decifively by its horns, which are not palmated, but round and pointed. This is the animal described by Catesby as the Cervus major Americanus, the ftag of America, le Cerf de l'Amerique. But it differs from the Cervus as totally, as does the palmated elk from dama. And in fact it seems to ftand in the fame relation to the 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 fince the year 1765, is now common beyond those mountains, has been often brought to |