George Warburton - The Conquest of Canada, Vol. 1

The height of the domesticated reindeer is about three feet; of the wild ones, four. It lives to the age of sixteen years. The reindeer is a native of the northern regions only. In America it does not extend further south than Canada. The Indians often kill numbers for the sake of their tongue only; at other times they separate the flesh from the bones, and preserve it by drying it in the smoke. The fat they sell to the English, who use it for frying instead of butter. The skins, also, are an article of extensive commerce with the English.—Rees's Cyclopædia , art. Cervus Tarandus.

Charlevoix says that the Canadian caribou differs in nothing from the Renne of Buffon except in the color of its skin, which is brown or reddish.—Tom. v., p. 191. La Hontan calls the caribou a species of wild ass; and Charlevoix says that its form resembles that of the ass, but that it at least equals the stag in agility.

Pennant is persuaded that the stag is not a native of America, and considers the deer known in that country by the name of stag as a distinct species. The American stag is the Cervus Canadensis of Erxleben. The Americans hunt and shoot those animals not so much for the sake of the flesh as of the fat, which serves as tallow in making candles, and the skins, which they dispose of to the Hudson's Bay Company. They are caught principally in the inland parts, near the vicinity of the lakes.—Rees's Cyclopædia , art. Cervus Elaphus.

Charlevoix says that "le Cerf en Canada est absolument le même qu'en France, peut être communément un peu plus grand."—Tom. v., p. 189.

The fallow deer in America have been introduced there from Europe; for the animal called the American fallow is of a very different kind, and is peculiar to the New Continent. This, the Cervus Virginianus, inhabits all the provinces south of Canada.—Rees's Cyclopædia , art. Cervus Virginianus.

See Appendix, No. XXXIII. (vol. II.)

See Appendix, No. XXXIV. (vol. II.)

See Appendix, No. XXXV. (vol. II.)

See Appendix, No. XXXVI. (vol. II.)

See Appendix, No. XXXVII. (vol. II.)

See Appendix, No. XXXVIII. (vol. II.)

See Appendix, No. XXXIX. (vol. II.)

See Appendix, No. XL. (vol. II.)

"While we were roaming along the shore of Lake Ontario we caught a species of tortoise (testudo picta), which was a gayly-colored shell, and I carried it a day's journey in the carriage, and then turned it out, to see whether, as I was told, it would know its way back to Lake Ontario. I am bound to admit that its instinct on this occasion did not fail, for it made directly for a ravine, in the bottom of which was a stream that would lead it in time to the Genesee River, and this would carry it to its native lake if it escaped destruction at the Falls below Rochester, where the celebrated diver, Sam Patch, perished, after he had succeeded in throwing himself with impunity down several other great waterfalls. There is a fresh-water tortoise in Europe (Terrapena Europea) found in Hungary, Prussia, and Silesia, as far north as latitude 50° to 52°. It also occurs near Bordeaux, and in the north of Italy, 44° and 45° north latitude, which precisely corresponds with the latitude of Lake Ontario."—Lyell's Travels in North America , vol. i., p. 25.

"To the Malacodermous division belongs the remarkable genus Lampyris, which contains the insects commonly called glow-worms. The substance from which the luminous property results has been the subject of frequent experiment and observation. It is obviously under the control of the animal, which, when approached, may frequently be observed to diminish or put out its light. The only species with which we are acquainted in British America is Lampyris corusca. It occurs in Canada, and has been taken at least as far north as latitude 54°. It was originally described by Simmons as a native of Finland and Russia, on the authority of Uddman, but has not since been found there."—Murray, vol. iii., p. 277.

"We saw numerous yellow butterflies, very like a British species. Sometimes forty of them clustering on a small spot resembled a plot of primroses, and as they rose altogether, and flew off slowly on every side, it was like the play of a beautiful fountain."—Lyell's America , vol. i., p. 25.

"Driven by the European populations toward the northwest of North America,[De Tocqueville calculated that along the borders of the United States, from Lake Superior to the Gulf of Mexico, extending a distance of more than 1200 miles, as the bird flies, the whites advance every year at a mean rate of seventeen miles; and he truly observes that there is a grandeur and solemnity in this gradual and continuous march of the European race toward the Rocky Mountains. He compares it to "a deluge of men rising, unabatedly, and daily driven onward by the hand of God."— Democracy in America , vol. ii., cap. x., §4; Lyell, vol. ii., p. 77] the savage tribes are returning, by a singular destiny, to expire on the same shore where they landed, in unknown ages, to take possession of America. In the Iroquois language, the Indians gave themselves the appellation of Men of Always (Ongoueonoue); these men of always have passed away, and the stranger will soon have left to the lawful heirs of a whole world nothing but the mold of their graves."—Chateaubriand's Travels in America (Eng. trans.), vol. ii., p. 93.

See Appendix, No. XLI. (vol. II.)

See Appendix, No. XLII. (vol. II.)

"Generally speaking, the American races of mankind were characterized by a want of domestic animals, and this had considerable influence on their domestic life." ( Cosmos , note, vol. ii., p. 481.) Contrasting the Bedouin with the Red Indian, Volney observes, "the American savage is, on the contrary, a hunter and a butcher, who has had daily occasion to kill and slay, and in every animal has beheld nothing but a fugitive prey, which he must be quick to seize. He has thus acquired a roaming, wasteful, and ferocious disposition; has become an animal of the same kind with the wolf and tiger; has united in bands or troops, but not into organized societies."

On ne prit pas d'abord les Américains pour des hommes, mais pour des orang-otangs, pour des grands singes, qu'on pouvoit détruire sans remords et sans reproche. Un pape fit une Bulle originale dans laquelle il déclara qu' ayant envie de fonder des Evêchés dans les plus riches contrées de l'Amérique, il plaisoit à lui et au Saint Esprit de reconnoitre les Américains pour des hommes véritables; de sorte que, sans cette décision d'une Italien, les habitans du Nouveau Monde seroient encore maintenant, aux yeux des fidèles, une race d'animaux équivoques.... Qui auroit cru que malgré cette sentence de Rome, on eut agité violemment au conseil de Lima, 1583, si les Américains avoient assez d'esprit pour être admis aux sacrements de l'Eglise. Plusieurs évêques persistèrent à les leur refuser pendant que les Jésuites faisoient communier tous les jours leurs Indiens esclaves au Paraquai, afin de les accoûtumer, disoient-ils, à la discipline, et pour les détourner de l'horrible coutume de se nourrir de chair humain.— Récherches Philosophiques sur les Américains , De Pauw, tom. i., p. 35.