ng a duty of
a guinea and a half a ton only.

I have the honor to be, with the highest esteem and respect, Dear Sir,

your most obedient and

most humble servant,

Tm: Jefferson.

LETTER CXLIX.--TO A. CARY, January 7, 1786

TO A. CARY.

Paris, January 7, 1786.

Dear Sir,

The very few of my countrymen who happen to be punctual, will find their
punctuality a misfortune to them. Of this I shall give you a proof by
the present application, which I should not make to you, if I did
not know you to be superior to the torpidity of our climate. In my
conversations with the Count de Buffon on the subjects of Natural
History, I find him absolutely unacquainted with our elk and our deer.
He has hitherto believed that our deer never had horns more than a foot
long; and has, therefore, classed them with the roe-buck, which I am
sure you know them to be different from. I have examined some of the red
deer of this country at the distance of about sixty yards, and I find
no other difference between them and ours, than a shade or two in the
color. Will you take the trouble to procure for me the largest pair of
buck's horns you can, and a large skin of each color, that is to say,
a red and a blue? If it were possible to take these from a buck just
killed, to leave all the bones of the head in the skin with the horns
on, to leave the bones of the legs in the skin also, and the hoofs to
it, so that having only made an incision all along the belly and neck to
take the animal out at, we could by sewing up that incision and stuffing
the skin, present the true size and form of the animal, it would be
a most precious present. Our deer have been often sent to England and
Scotland. Do you know (with certainty) whether they have ever bred with
the red deer of those countries? With respect to the elk, I despair of
your being able to get for me any thing but the horns of it. David Ross
I know has a pair; perhaps he would give them to us. It is useless to
ask for the skin and skeleton, because I think it is not in your power
to get them, otherwise they would be most desirable. A gentleman,
fellow-passenger with me from Boston to England, promised to send to you
in my name some hares, rabbits, pheasants, and partridges, by the return
of the ship which was to go to Virginia, and the captain promised to
take great care of them. My friend procured the animals, and the ship
changing her destination, he kept them, in hopes of finding some