Page:Notes on the State of Virginia (1853).djvu/70

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I have not inserted in the first table the phoca nor leather-winged bat, because the one living half the year in the water, and the other being a winged animal, the individuals of each species may visit both continents.

Of the animals in the first table, Mons. de Buffon himself informs us, that the roe, the beaver, the otter, and shrew mouse, though of the same species, are larger in America than Europe. This should therefore have corrected the generality of his expressions; and elsewhere, that the animals common to the two countries, are considerably less in America than in Europe: “& cela sans aucune exception.” He tells us too, that on examining a bear from America, he remarked no difference: “Dans la forme de cet ours d' Amerique compart a celui d' Europe.” But adds from Bartram's journal, that an American bear weighed 400 ℔ English, equal to 367 ℔ French; whereas we find the European bear, examined by Mons. D'Aubenton, weighed but 141 ℔ French. Kalm tells us that the moose, orignal, or palmated elk of America, is as