limate of Florida and Texas quite as much as the cold declivities of
the Alleghanies.

And how does North America possess more species than any other part of
the world? Even admitting the doubtful fifth, on the continent of Asia
there are six species at the very least; and, if we are allowed to
include the Oriental islands, we make eight Asiatic. There are three
species in the Himalaya mountains alone--unquestionably distinct,
dwelling in separate zones of altitude, but with the territory of all
three visible at a single _coup d'oeil_.

Mr Baird is a naturalist of great celebrity in America. He is a
secretary of the Smithsonian Institution: he should make better use of
the books which its fine library can afford him.

The United States' Government is extremely unfortunate in the selection
of its scientific _employes_--more especially in the departments of
natural history. Perhaps the most liberal appropriation ever made for
ethnological purposes--that for collecting a complete account of the
North American Indians--has been spent without purpose, the "job" having
fallen into the hands of a "placeman," or "old hunker," as the Americans
term it--a man neither learned nor intellectual. With the exception of
the statistics furnished by Indian agents, the voluminous work of
Schoolcraft is absolutely worthless; and students of ethnology cannot
contemplate such a misappropriation without feelings of regret.

Fortunately, the American aboriginal had already found a true portrayer
and historian. Private enterprise, as is not unfrequently the case, has
outstripped Government patronage in the performance of its task. In the
unpretending volumes of George Catlin we find the most complete
ethnological monograph ever given to the world; but just for that
reason, Catlin, not Schoolcraft, should have been chosen for the "job."

Knowing the range of the black bear to be thus grandly extended, our
young hunters had a choice of places in which to look for one; but, as
there is no place where these animals are more common than in Louisiana
itself, they concluded that they could not do better than there choose
their hunting-ground. In the great forests, which still cover a large
portion of Louisiana, and especially upon the banks of the sluggish
_bayous_, where the marshy soil and the huge cypress trees, festooned
with Spanish moss, bid defiance to all attempts at cultivation, the
black bear still roams at will. There he is fou