The pouched rat, or mus busarius, has been seen but once in Europe. This was a specimen sent to the British Museum from Canada, and described by Dr. Shaw. But its existence is rather questioned by Chev. Cuvier. Both animals have been described, and the descriptions published in the 21st vol. of the Medical Repository, of New York, pp. 248, 249. The specimens [from the West] are both preserved in my museum. Drawings have been executed by the distinguished artist Milbert, and forwarded by him, at my request, to the administrators of the King's Museum, at Paris, of which he is a corresponding member. My descriptions accompany them. The animals are retained as too valuable to be sent out of the country. [B.]
The paddle-fish is the spatularia of Shaw, and polydon of Lacepede. It lives in the Mississippi only, and the skeleton, though incomplete, is better than any other person here possesses. It is carefully preserved in my collection.
The serpent is a species of the ophalian genus anguis, the oveto of the French, and the blind worm of the English. The loss of the tail of this fragile creature renders an opinion a little dubious; but it is supposed to be opthiosaureus of Dandrige, corresponding to the anguis ventralis of Linnæus, figured by Catesby.
The shells afford a rich amount of an undescribed species. The whole of the univalves and bivalves received from Messrs. Schoolcraft and Douglass have been assembled and examined, with all I possessed before, and with Mr. Stacy Collins's molluscas brought from the Ohio. Mr. Barnes is charged with describing and delineating all the species not contained in Mr. Say's Memoir of the Productions of the Land and Fresh Waters of North America. The finished work will be laid before the Lyceum, and finally be printed in Mr. Silliman's New Haven Journal. The species by which geology will be enriched will amount, probably, to nine or ten. (C.) We shall endeavor to be just to our friends and benefactors.
S. L. MITCHELL.
For Gov. CASS.
Notes.
(A.)
An animal similar, in some respects, has been subsequently found on the Straits of St. Mary's, Michigan, a specimen of the dried skin of which I presented to the National Institute at Washington; but, from the absence of the head bones and teeth, it is not easy to determine whether it is a sciurus, or arctomys.
(B.)