ry
important. We have first, three peculiar genera of moles, one of which, the
star-nosed mole, is a most extraordinary creature, quite unlike anything
else. Then there are three genera of the weasel family, including the
well-known skunk (Mephitis), all quite different from Eastern forms. Then
we come to a peculiar family of carnivora, the racoons, very distinct from
anything in Europe or Asia; and in the Rocky Mountains we find the
prong-horn antelope (Antilocapra) and the mountain goat of the trappers
(Aplocerus), both peculiar genera. Coming to the rodents we find that the
mice of America differ in some dental peculiarities from those of the rest
of the world, and thus form several distinct genera; the jumping mouse
(Xapus) is a peculiar form of the jerboa family, and then we come to the
pouched rats (Geomyidae), a very curious family consisting of four genera
and nineteen species, peculiar to North America, though not confined to the
Nearctic region. The prairie dogs (Cynomys), the tree porcupine
(Erethizon), the curious sewellel (Haploodon), and the opossum (Didelphys)
complete the list of peculiar mammalia which distinguish the northern
region of the new world from that of the old. We must add to these
peculiarities some remarkable deficiencies. The Nearctic region has no
hedgehogs, nor wild pigs, nor dormice, and only one wild sheep in the Rocky
Mountains as against twenty species of sheep and goats in the Palaearctic
region.

In birds also the similarities to our own familiar songsters first strike
us, though the differences are perhaps really greater than in the
quadrupeds. We see thrushes and wrens, tits and finches, and what seem to
be warblers and flycatchers and starlings in abundance; but a closer
examination shows the ornithologist that what he took for the {50} latter
are really quite distinct, and that there is not a single true flycatcher
of the family Muscicapidae, or a single starling of the family Sturnidae in
the whole continent, while there are very few true warblers (Sylviidae),
their place being taken by the quite distinct families Mniotiltidae or
wood-warblers, and Vireonidae or greenlets. In like manner the flycatchers
of America belong to the totally distinct family of tyrant-birds,
Tyrannidae, and those that look like starlings to the hang-nests,
Icteridae; and these four peculiar families comprise about a hundred and
twenty species, and give a special character to the ornithology of the
co