Note 29 — THE TESTIMONY OF THE ROCKS. (continued 6)
Reading edition
The following estimate of the air-breathing vertebrates (that of the "Physical Atlas," second edition, 1856) may be regarded as the latest. It will he seen that it does not include the cetacea or the seals:—
SPECIES.
Quadrumana 170
Marsupialia 123
Edentata 28
Pachydermata 39
Terrestrial Carnivora 514
Rodentia 604
Ruminantia 180
—— 1658
Birds 6266
Reptiles 657
Turtles 8 Sea Snakes 7 } 15
—— 642
Great as is this number of animals, compared with those known a century ago, there are indications that the list is to be increased rather than diminished. Even by the latest European authorities the reindeer is represented as consisting of but a single species, common to the sub-arctic regions of both the Old and New Worlds; whereas in the "Canadian Naturalist" for 1856 I find it stated, on what seems to be competent authority, that America has its two species of reindeer, and that they both differ from the European species.