In conclusion, it is interesting to remark that the whole series of these very singular animals offers a notable example of one genus being confined to a particular country.  We have observed that they all belong to South America; nor do we find that in any parts of the old world, or, indeed, in the great northern division of the new, any races of quadrupeds at all to resemble them, or in any manner to be compared with them.  They may be said to stand perfectly insulated; they exhibit all the characters of a creation entirely distinct, and except as to the general characters of mammiferous quadrupeds, perfectly of their own kind.  There is no break in the whole circle of them, no deviation or leaning towards any other organized form; so that the boldest conjecture will hardly venture to guess at any other than a separate creation for these animals, and a distinct allocation in South America.  This peculiarity is rendered the more striking by the facility with which it seems to endure removal, even to our latitudes; thereby proving that its present confined identity with South America is not altogether the result of its physical necessities.[10]

    [10] Popular Zoology.  Comprising Memoirs and Anecdotes of the
    Animals of the Zoological Society’s Menagerie.  With many
    Engravings. 1832.

* * * * *

CLIMATE OF CANADA.

From Sketches, by a Backwoodsman.

It never has been accountable to me, how the heat of the sun is regulated.  There is no part of Upper Canada that is not to the south of Penzance, yet there is no part of England where the cold is so intense as in Canada; nay, there is no cold in England equal to the cold of Virginia, which, were it on the European side of the hemisphere, would be looked upon as an almost tropical climate.  To explain to an European what the climate of Upper Canada is, we would say, that in summer it is the climate of Italy, in winter that of Holland; but in either case we should only be giving an illustration, for in both winter and summer it possesses peculiarities which neither of these two climates possess.  The summer heat of Upper Canada generally ranges towards 80 deg.  Fahrenheit; but should the wind blow twenty-four hours steadily from the north, it will fall to 40 deg. during the night.  The reason of this seems to be the enormous quantity of forest over which that wind blows, and the leaves of the trees affording such an extensive surface of evaporation.  One remarkable peculiarity in the climate of Canada, when compared with those to which we have likened it, is its dryness.  Far from the ocean, the salt particles that somehow or other exist in the atmosphere of sea-bounded countries are not to be found here; roofs of tinned iron of fifty years’ standing are as bright as the day they came out of the shop; and you may leave a charge of powder in your gun for a month, and find, at the