NATURAL HISTORY. "In America, Nature's children are grand and grotesque, in form and in IN the nomenclature of the various departments of Natural History little that is truly and originally American can be expected, since the most prominent objects classed under that head, are well known in Europe, and have long since been named there, while the few that were first discovered here, received their names generally by the first settlers, Frenchmen and Spaniards included. Where this was not the case, they are of such rare occurrence and limited usefulness, that their proper designation is known only to men of science. We have endeavored to give elsewhere those terms which are clearly traceable to foreign idioms, and shall here content ourselves with mentioning such names only as deserve consideration for some special reason. Among Animals peculiar to this continent, the American Buffalo stands naturally foremost, both on account of the vast numbers which still are found in the West, and for its vital importance for the preservation of the Indian race. The name is a very ancient one, given by Pliny, as Boúßalos, to the wild ox (Urus), then attributed to various wild animals of large size, and finally transferred to our Bison (Bison americanus), a near kinsman of the German Auerochs. The immediate ancestor of that name is, no doubt, the Spanish bufalo (Bos bubalus), as the French buffle could not well have lent itself to such an enlargement. The animal, too well known to require a description here, lends its name to a number of other objects. Buffalo-Cider is the ludicrous name given to the liquid in the stomach of a buffalo, which the thirsty hunter drinks, when he has killed his game at a great distance from water. The name is, likewise, given to several plants, of which the buffalo was formerly believed to be particularly fond, such as the Buffalo-Grass (Sesteria dactyloides), which has the remarkable property of giving, every spring, new life to the winter-killed blade, without casting its stubble or sending out new shoots. The Buffalo-Clover, on the prairies most frequented by the animal, and the Buffalo-Berry (Shepherdia argentea), found only on the upper Missouri, are named in the same manner. A fish even bears the same name as the gigantic bison, on account of its remarkable shape, which has in science also procured for him the title of Taurichthys (S. F. Baird). The hide of the buffalo alone is called a robe, but where it is most used as a cover, it is never known otherwise than as a buffalo only. "I put my blanket over my head, drew my buffalo close around me, and let the snow fall upon me till I was fairly buried, my breath alone making an opening through which I could breathe." (Adventures in the Rocky Mountains.) The Elk, constantly confounded with the Caribou, the Wapiti, and the Moose, has been mentioned elsewhere. The Catamount (Felis concolor), is an animal peculiar to this continent, and occurs in different parts of America: as the Cougar, from the couguar of the French, which they themselves again took from cuguaracu, the name of the animal among the Guaranies of South America as the puma from Mexico to Cape Horn, so called by the Quichuans of Peru-and as the painter or panter, the familiar corruption of panther, found in the everglades of Florida, where it hides in the high grass or crouches on the branches of the live oak to spring upon its prey. “Painter-meat can't shine with this,' said a hunter, to express his delight at the delicate flavor of an extra cut of tenderloin." (Life in the Far West, p. 311.) In the Chippewa dialect, it re-appears as missi-pezhew, the Great Cat, and this is the animal found in Canada and Maine, the only one in the latter State that man need fear. As for the name Catamount, it may have been derived from the Spanish words gato, a cat, and monte, a mountain, as many maintain, but, if this be so, the derivation is, of course, older than the American usage; for Beaumont and Fletcher have already the English combination, which seems to be, far more justly, the true ancestor of the modern word "Would any man of discretion venture such a gristle, To the rude claws of such a cat-a-mountain." Pope and Arbuthnot call it by the same name, and nothing is more probable than that catamount is simply a shortened form of the fuller and older name. "The blinded catamount that lies High in the boughs to watch his prey, (W. C. Bryant.) The Chickaree is the red squirrel (Sciurus hudsonius) of the North, from the Atlantic to the Missouri, named so, no doubt, from the peculiar noise he is fond of making; as a tiny bird has, in like manner, received the name of chickadee from its peculiar note. "I woke up to find myself the subject of discussion of a troop of chickarees." (The Adirondacks, Putnam's Magazine, August, 1868.) The same squirrel is, in North Carolina, known by his Indian name of Booma. The Ground-Squirrel, on the contrary, name erroneously given to the Striped Prairie-Squirrel (Spermophilus tridecemlineatus), mentioned elsewhere as Gopher. The Cross Fox (Vulpes fulous, var decussatus) so called from the black cross on the back, is dear to the trapper for its fur; a cross between silver-gray and the common reddish is highly prized by peltry dealers. A very curious animal, peculiar to this country, is the Ground-hog, as it is commonly called in the South, or the Wood-chuck (Arctomys monax), familiar to Northern farmers. It is a species of the marmot tribe, very destructive to grass and growing crops generally. Like other marmots, it lies hid in its burrow, and dormant during the winter, emerging in early summer. "As I came home through the woods, with my string of fish, trailing my pole, it being now quite dark, I caught a glimpse of a wood-chuck stealing across my path, and felt a strange thrill of savage delight, and was strongly tempted to seize and devour him raw-not that I was hungry then, but for that wildness which he represented. (Walden, H. D. Thoreau.) One of the few superstitions found native in this country is connected with this animal. Candlemas is known as Ground-hog Day, for on that day the ground-hog comes annually out of his hole, after a long winter nap, to look for his shadow. If he perceives it, he retires again to his burrow, which he does not leave for six weeks -weeks necessarily of stormy weather. But if he does not see his shadow, for lack of sunshine, he stays out of his hole till he can, and the weather is sure to become mild and pleasant. “It is feared," says a distressed Low-Churchman, " that the introduction of ritualism and candles on that day may have thrown this year undesirable light and shadow on the emerging ground-hog, and brought confusion upon the weather." (New York Tribune, February 7, 1871.) The negroes of the South are keen hunters of the poor creature, who, in winter a mere ball of fur, during the summer grows into a perfect ball of fat, and is considered a great luxury at the "quarters." The second part of wood-chuck is used as hog is in ground-hog, for pigs are almost universally summoned to the feeding-trough by the word chuck! chuck! repeated several times, evidently the descendant of the old English sug! sug! which Grose says is a word used in Norfolk "to call pigs to eat their wash." A curious but by no means inappropriate name is that of a tiny rabbit, which is called Jackass-Rabbit, in honor of its very large ears, and long, slender legs (Lepus callotis). It is found only in Texas and the neighborhood of the Rocky Mountains, and known to hunters under a great variety of other names also, such as Texas-hare and Mule-rabbit. The Lucyver of Maine, a wildcat or lynx, has, on the contrary, no right whatever to a name so nearly akin to Lucifer; the word is a corruption of loup-cervier, the name given it by the early French settlers. The Mink, sometimes called a miniature otter, and then again an aquatic weasel, haunts all the streams and lakes of the United States, harboring under roots and hollow banks, from which it darts forth to prey upon fish, craw-fish, and all the tenants of the water. It even makes occasional predatory excursions into the poultry-yard, and is a great lover of fresh eggs. Its fur, very popular among ladies, is one of the most beautiful of American peltries, and brings a good price in the market. Hence it is much persecuted, and needs not the poet's suggestion to "Mind the mink Paddling the water by the quiet brink." (J. G. C. Brainerd.) The Musk-Ox (Oribos moschatus), and the Musk-Rat (Fiber zibethicus), owe their names, of course, to the powerful odor which 1 they exhale under peculiar circumstances. The former is only met with in the country around Hudson's Bay, the Barren Grounds of Arctic America; but the latter, closely allied to it in form and habits, abounds near all our lakes and streams. In the Northern States it is generally called Musquash, from its general Indian designation, which has in science also given it the name of Ondatra, from the Huron dialect of the Iroquois tongue. Another animal, peculiar to America, and found on the plains west of the Missouri River, is the Bighorn (Ovis montana) the Rocky Mountain sheep. "The Bighorn is so named from its horns, which are of great size, and twisted like those of a ram.” (W. Irving, Astoria, I., p. 253.) The Pronghorn (Antilocapre americana) is not a true antelope, because it sheds its horns, and has its name from the fact that each horn has a prong jutting out of it. It is called Cabrée by the Canadian voyageurs, and the Goat by the fur-traders. The hunters of the West value its meat very highly, and travellers on the Pacific Railway are eloquent in their praise of the animal's swift and graceful motions. The Mule-Deer (Cervus macrotis), the largest deer found on this continent, derives, in the same way, its less poetical name from its unusually long ears, while the variety found on the Pacific coast (Cervus columbianus), is more commonly designated as the Black-tail Deer, from the black tip to its tail. (S. F. Baird.) Birds suffer in America more, perhaps, than in any other country, from the general want of instruction in Natural History, which leads to profound ignorance of all that concerns them, except, perhaps, local habits. The same bird appears often under half a dozen different names, in different parts of the Union; and again, distinct varieties are considered as one, because they are all called by the same name. Such is, for instance, the case of the grouse and the bobolink. The partridge proper (Perdix cinerea) does not exist at all in America; the name is usurped by a quail in Pennsylvania and the South a pheasant (Ortyx virginianus) and a grouse (Bonasa umbellus); hence, W. C. Bryant sings: "I listened, and from midst the depth of wood, |