There may be a considerable number of tortoises, although few of nice measurement; and the keys or small coral islets alongside the coast of Florida, and the sandy spits alongside the shores of the southern Atlantic and gulf states, are frequented by the inexperienced and other sea turtles in great numbers. Along the watercourses are found cottonwoods and willows, but nearly all of the few bushes which occur elsewhere are of the leguminosæ, essentially the most frequent being the mezquite and the associated screw bean; these and the tesota or ironwood (Olneya), palo verde or inexperienced tree (cercidium and Parkinsonia), cassias, and others, the Mexican pistachio, Spanish buckeye (Ungnadia), mulberry, and a few others, make up the tree growth, besides in the mountains, where in favorable localities pines, oaks, &c., happen. The shrubs are numerous, and, in common with other vegetation, abundantly armed with prickles and spines; some shrubs, reminiscent of Kæberlinia and holocantha, not often present any leaves, the inexperienced bark answering their purpose, however have every branch and twig sharpened to kind a formidable spine, and the leafy shrubs often have their branches thus terminated, or are furnished with particular thorns; a thick progress of these spinescent shrubs is known as “chaparral,” and kinds an impenetrable barrier to man and beast.

The ophidians or serpents are numerous, but only the rattlesnakes, the moccason snakes, and the vipers are venomous. The fungi, although however partially investigated, are quite a few, with a lot of edible species amongst them. The crustacea are numerous, and lots of them edible. Of birds the genera and species are so quite a few, that only the extra outstanding could be named. As in most floras, the compositæ are right here very numerous, one eighth of all of the species belonging to this family; a few of these, as the solidagos, asters, sunflowers, and others, are so abunant as to offer a heat coloring to the autumn panorama. Others of the order are the cockle, hammer shell, razor shell, club shell, waterpot shell, and teredo or ship worm; and in the rivers the quite a few species of unio and anodonta, often referred to as contemporary-water clams, are abundant. Of the order raptores (birds of prey), the eagle, of which 5 species have been ascertained to exist in the United States, takes the first place. The commonest members of the order are the thrush tribe, together with the hen right here known as robin, the mocking hen, and the cat chook; the warblers and flycatchers; the swallows, a numerous family; the finch tribe, which includes the sparrows; the kingfishers, the crow tribe, the orioles, the grakles, and the humming birds.

The remaining members of the order discovered here are the badger, the wolverene or glutton, and the raccoon. The mountains afford a wealthy and various flora; listed here are found a terrific number of pines, spruces, and firs, and above them a actually alpine region, which has enriched our flora with a long checklist of selection species. Immediately west of the Mississippi the flora shouldn’t be extensively different from that on the japanese aspect; however as the large plains and the elevated dry plateaus are reached, a unique vegetation seems, whereas that of the Rocky mountains is primarily not like that of the high eastern peaks; some vast districts have the soil so strongly impregnated with alkali that few plants can exist. 4. The plains west of the Mississippi, and the Rocky mountains. There is an antelope, the prong-horn, a local of the Rocky mountain region; and a consultant of the sheep family, the massive-horn or Rocky mountain sheep, found in the region of the Rocky mountains and Sierra Nevada.

Along the mountains northern plants extend far southward. Among bushes, maples, buckeye, cherry, buttonwood, oaks in great quantity, chestnut, birches, willows, and others of genera widespread to the northern states of the east, are here represented by species peculiar to the coast. In some localities virtually the whole vegetation is made up of those plants, which current nature in her most grotesque side.-Flowerless or cryptogamous plants, especially these of a decrease organization, are a lot much less restricted in their distribution than flowering plants. Among the upper orders of these, the ferns and membership mosses, most of the genera and likewise of the species are the same as those of Europe, and within the mosses, lichens, and lower kinds the number of European species continues to be better; but all these families present numerous peculiarly American genera, and American species of European genera. The herbaceous plants current nice attractions to the botanist, and a few from their distinction with northern types arrest the eye of the unbotanical traveller. Of the pinnigrada, the common seal occurs on the Atlantic coast, and the northern sea bear (callorhinus ursinus), which is taken in nice numbers on the Pribyloff islands belonging to Alaska, occurs as far south because the mouth of the Columbia.