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A STATISTICAL VIEW OF MEXICO.

American, two; German, one. The business, how ever, has been unprofitable.

The great source of wealth in Mexico, is her em

The United States of Mexico formed their constitution in 1824, on the plan of our federal union.The deviations were few and inconsiderable; nine-inently productive soil. All the productions of teen states and four territories formed the confeder- southern Europe abound there in the greatest state ation. A president was to be elected every four of luxuriance and perfection. years, and could not be re-elected. A senate of two members from each state, and a deputy for each 80,000 population, formed the congress.

According to that constitution, every man at eighteen years of age became a voter; no other qualification was required.

Indians and Mestizoes, Negroes and Mulattoes, were equally free citizens and voters.

Horses, cattle, sheep, &c., of the finest quality, can be raised at a very trifling expense; the climate being remarkably congenial to their nature. The expense of winter-feeding is avoided, there being no winter there; horses of the best quality can be obtained for fifteen to twenty dollars per head.

The Mexicans have 1,000,000,000 acres of good land to be sold to colonists on six years' credit, at a few cents per acre. Any poor man, therefore, without a cent in his pocket, can purchase his thou

The population of Mexico is at present about 8,000,000; In 1794, it was 5,000,000; in 1806 it was 5,500,000; in 1825, it was 6,850,000; this popula-sands of acres of the very best land in the world,

tion is divided as follows:

1. Indians, 4,000,000.

--

2. Mestizoes, that is, descendants of Indians and Spanish, 2,000,000.

3. Creoles, Spanish descent, born in Mexico,

1,200,000.

4. Zamboes, Indian and Negro descent, and Mulattoes, 600,000.

5. Negroes, 100,000.

6. Guachupins, or natives of Spain, 10,000. 7. Estrangeroes, or strangers, American, English, French, Italian, &c. 15,000.

By the relative population, we perceive that Indians and Mestizoes form the bulk of the nation, and with equal privileges are sure to rule it at a future

time.

and from the productions of that land, if he be industrious, at the expiration of six years, find his payments all made, and himself independently rich.

Agricultural labour can be obtained throughout Mexico at the average rate of twenty-five cents per day. These low rates operate eminently to the advantage of the enterprising agriculturist; but the consequence is, nine tenths of the natives for ever remain in the most abject poverty and servitude.— Like the ancient Israelites, they sell themselves to pay their debts, a small debt, of a few dollars, often forcing them into a servitude, from which, in consequence of the high price of clothing, and the low rates of labour, they are never able to extricate themselves. Mechanical labour is mostly performed by foreigners at from two to four dollars per day. Soldiers of infantry have one dollar twenty-five cents per day, and of cavalry two dollars, but they have no rations allowed them; they must therefore clothe and feed themselves, the government furnishing nothing but arms and ammunition. The pay, however, is always in arrears and very difficult to collect. They seldom receive any thing but clothing, charged The land in Mexico is generally much superiour to them at an extravagant rate, and that only when to that of the United States. Almost all the produc-reduced to the last extremity. As to their food, they tions of other climes grow there in rich luxuriance. are often compelled to borrow, beg or levy it by The produce of maize is wonderful; an acre has military contributions. The Mexican forces are at been known to produce 200 bushels, and some stems this time in a very disorganized and turbulent conare twenty feet high, with five or six large ears. dition, reduced to rags and beggary, without resources, their pay several months in arrears, and the national treasury exhausted. Such is the nation with whom the brave Texans are at war, and such the country they possess.

They are at present, however, regarded with extreme contempt, and are, by the whites, opprobriously denominated irrational. The number of Indians remain nearly the same as when first discovered by the Spaniards, three centuries ago, and their manners and religion have been little affected by

their white intruders.

Wheat grows well only on the table-land, but there it commonly yields twenty-five to one. In the irrigated lands of Mexico it has even yielded fifty to one, while in Europe only ten or twelve to one is considered the average production; and the best lands in Kentucky yield only twenty-two to one.

To produce 1,000,000 pounds of sugar, only one hundred and fifty labourers are required, while three hundred are requisite in Cuba and Louisiana. The production of coffee is still easier in Mexico; twenty men can attend 200,000 trees, which, on an average, produce 500,000 pounds.

Cotton also, of a quality far superiour to ours, can be purchased in many parts of Mexico, in greater quantities by one third, than can be obtained from the best lands in Louisiana.

There is a hardihood of effrontery, which will, under many circumstances, supply the place of courage, as impudence has sometimes passed current for wit. Wilkes had much of the first, and Mirabeau of the second. He received challenge after challenge, but unlike Wilkes he accepted none of them, and contented himself with merely noting down the names of the parties in his pocketbook it is not fair, he would say, that a man of talent like myself should be exposed to blockheads like The silver mines in Mexico are perhaps inex- these. It would seem that he had argued himself haustible; $3,000,000,000 of silver have been drawn into the same kind of self-importance with Rousfrom them during three hundred years past, avera-seau, who came to this very disinterested concluging $10,000,000 per annum. sion, that it was incumbent upon him to take the utmost possible care of Jean Jacques for the good of society.

The first English mining company was established 1823; there are now ten; English, seven; North

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In size and bulk the emeu is exceeded by the African ostrich alone. It is stated by travellers to attain a height of more than seven feet, and its average measurement in captivity may be estimated at between five and six. In form, it closely resembles the ostrich, but is lower on the legs, shorter in the neck, and of a more thickset and clumsy make. At a distance its feathers have more of the appearance of hair than of plumage, their barbs being all loose and separate. As in the other ostriches, they take their origin by pairs from the same shaft. Their general colour is a dull-brown, mottled with dirty gray, the latter prevailing more particularly on the under surface of the bird. On the head and neck they become gradually shorter, assume still more completely the appearance of hairs, are so thinly scattered over the forepart of the throat and around the ears, that the skin, which is of a purplish hue, is distinctly visible. This appearance is most remarkable in the older birds, in which these parts are left nearly bare. The wings are so extremely small as to be quite invisible when applied to the surface of the body. They are clothed with feathers exactly similar to those of the back, which, it should be observed, divide as it were from a middle line, and fall gracefully over on either side. The colour of the bill and legs is of a dusky-black; and that of the iris dull-brown..

In the vocabulary of the early Portuguese naviga- | from the cassowary by the absence of crest, wattors, the name of emeu was applied to a gigantick tles, and quills, the depression of its bill, the posibird of the ostrich family, inhabiting the peninsula tion of its nostrils, and the equality of its claws. of Malacca and the great chain of islands to the south and east. This denomination has, however, been long superseded by that of cassowary, derived from its native Malayan appellation. On the other hand, the bird now before us was named by naturalists, on its first discovery, the New Holland cassowary, to indicate its close affinity to the Asiatick species. But the colonists of New South Wales having adopted for the Australian bird the name of emeu, now no longer otherwise appropriated, and naturalists in general having of late years sanctioned this transfer of an abandoned title, there can be no objection to its retention, and no risk of any future confusion in the synonymy arising from the change. The characters of this genus, which may now be regarded as firmly established, are as follows:-It has a straight bill, very much depressed towards the sides, slightly keeled along its middle, and rounded at the point; large nostrils, covered by a membrane and opening above on the middle of the bill; a head unsurmounted by a bony crest, and covered with feathers up to a certain age; a naked throat without wattles; powerful legs of considerable length, fleshy and feathered down to the joint, naked and reticulated below it; three toes directed forwards, the two lateral ones equal in length, and the posterior wholly wanting; the claws of all the toes nearly equal; and no true quill-feathers either to the wings or tail. It is consequently distinguished from the African ostrich by the number of its toes; from it and the rhea by the trifling development of its wings, and the total want of plumage to the wings and tail; and

These birds appear to be widely spread over the southern part of the continent of New Holland and the neighbouring islands; but we are not aware that they have been hitherto discovered in its tropical

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regions. They were formerly very abundant in the account of the dogs it does not appear whether they neighbourhood of Botany bay and Port Jackson, but were of the native Australian breed. It is more have been of late years compelled by the increasing probable that they were English hounds; and the numbers of the settlers to seek shelter in the interi- name of one of them, Spot, adds some confirmation our. On the south coast they have been met with to this conjecture, for we are not aware that the in great plenty, at Port Phillip by Captain Flinders, pure New Holland dog has ever been found spotted. and at King George's sound by the same officer and In either case, the account may be quoted as a surthe naturalists of the expedition under D'Entrecas-prising instance of animal docility, which would be teaux. They seem also to be extremely numerous only the more striking if exhibited by the less sagain the adjacent islands, especially in Kangaroo island, cious breed. where they were found in the greatest abundance by both Flinders and Peron; and in King's island, where the distinguished naturalist last named and his companions were fortunately enabled, by the kindness of some English seal-hunters, to subsist, chiefly upon emeu's flesh, for several days while temporarily deserted by their captain. According to the late accounts from Swan river they have also been observed on that part of the west coast on which the new settlement is situated.

If we are to credit the report of the same author, the flesh of the emeu is " truly exquisite, and intermediate, as it were, between that of a turkey and a sucking-pig." But some allowance must be made for the circumstances in which he first partook of it, when he and his companions, abandoned by their captain, and without any means of procuring subsistence, had no other prospect than that of perishing by starvation, until relieved by the generosity of the fishermen. The English colonists do not appear to have quite so high an opinion of its merits; they compare it to beef, which it resembles, according to Mr. Cunningham, "both in appearance and taste, and is good and sweet eating: nothing indeed can be more delicate than the flesh of the young ones. There is but little," he says, "fit for culinary use upon any part of the emeu, except the hind-quarters, which are of such dimensions that the shouldering of the two hindlegs homewards, for a mile distance, once proved to me as tiresome a task as I ever recollect to have encountered in the colony." Their eggs are held in much estimation, and, according to the same authority, the natives almost live upon them during the hatching season. They are as large as those of an ostrich, with equally thick shells, coloured of a beautiful dark-green, and are usually six or seven in number; but we have no information as to the manner in which the wild birds form their nest. It probably consists, like that of other ostriches, of a mere cavity scooped in the earth. They seem to pair together with tolerable constancy, and the male bird, as in some other monogamous races, sits and hatches the young. "The In captivity, the emeus are perfectly tame, and speedily become domesticated. They have been bred in England without difficulty in various collections. A very fine pair are exhibited in the New York Zoological Institute.

The emeu was first described and figured, under the name of the New Holland cassowary, in Governour Phillip's Voyage to Botany bay, published in 1789. In its manners, it bears a close resemblance to the ostrich, as might be expected from their near relationship. Its food appears to be wholly vegetable, consisting chiefly of fruits, roots, and herbage; and it is consequently, notwithstanding its great strength, perfectly inoffensive. The length of its legs, and the muscularity of its thighs, enable it to run with great swiftness; and, as it is exceedingly shy, it is not easily overtaken, or brought within gunshot. Captain Currie, in Mr. Barron Field's Memoirs on New South Wales, states that it affords "excellent coursing, equalling, if not surpassing, the same sport with the hare in England." And Mr. Cunningham, in his amusing work entitled Two Years in New South Wales, gives a curious account of the manner in which it is usually coursed by the dogs. The latter gentleman states that dogs will seldom attack it, both on account of some peculiar odour in its flesh, which they dislike, and because the injuries which it inflicts upon them, by striking out with its feet, are frequently very severe. settlers even assert," he says, "that they (the emeus) will break the small bone of a man's leg by this sort of kick; which to avoid, the well-trained dogs run up abreast, and make a sudden spring at their neck, whereby they are quickly despatched."

But although dogs in general may be reluctant to attack the emeu, this is by no means the case with those which are specially trained for the purpose. M. Peron assures us that the English seal-fishers on King's island, in Bass's strait, had with them dogs which were taught to go alone into the woods in quest of kangaroos and emeus, and rarely failed to destroy several of these animals every day. When the chase was at an end, they returned to their masters' dwelling, made known by signs the success of their expedition, and conducted the hunters to the spot where the quarry was deposited. It was thus that these adventurous traders were enabled to supply themselves with provisions, even while they devoted nearly the whole of their time to the commercial pursuits in which they were engaged. This statement, M. Peron assures us, does not depend on the mere assertions of the fishermen themselves, for he had himself witnessed the fact. From his

THE AFRICAN PORCUPINE.
Hystrix cristata.-LINN.

The animals of the Rodent division, consisting chiefly of "rats and mice and such small deer," have, indeed, with some few exceptions, so little of interest for the mere casual visiter of an exhibition, that it is rarely that they are sought after unless by the scientifick collector. They are at once distinguished from the carnivora by the total absence of canine teeth; and have uniformly two incisors in each jaw, projecting forwards, and generally of considerable size, separated from a variable number of grinders by a vacant space.

From the other animals of the order, the porcupines are so readily distinguished by the long and pointed spines with which their body is armed, that it is unnecessary to dwell on their generick charac

with the feathers of the dependent crest terminating in a rich violet. A line of pure white passes in an elegant curve from the base of the upper mandible above the eye, and a second extends beneath and parallel to the first from immediately behind the eye. The cheeks and sides of the neck at its upper part are violet; and the entire front of the latter, with a collar round its lower part, and two processes like the horns of a crescent bounding the cheeks behind, white. The breast is deep brown, marked with triangular spots of white, which are very small anteriorly, but increase in size towards the abdomen, where they spread into the general white of that part. A broad white crescent, followed by another of deep black, bounds the posterior part of the breast on either side. The back and tail are dusky, with a metallick gloss of green; the primary quill-feathers of the wings dusky, with a kind of bloom of bluish ters. The common porcupine, when fully grown, white; and the wing-coverts violet-blue, tipped with violet; the secondaries greenish-blue, tipped with as in the remarkably fine specimen figured above, black. The sides of the body are marked by fine measures more than two feet from the tip of the nose transverse undulating lines of black, on a drab-colto the origin of the tail. The spines, which are oured ground; immediately beneath the wings are supported by a slender pedicle, thickly clothe the placed a series of broad alternate crescent-shaped upper and posterior parts of the body, the largest bands of black and white; and the lateral tail-coverts, being more than a foot in length; they are regularly surrounded by alternate rings of black and white. The head and neck are crested with long, bristly, black hairs, forming a kind of mane, and all the rest of the body is covered with short black hair.

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which are loose and hairlike in their texture, exhibit black margin and a patch of black extending from a beautiful metallick gloss. The bill is red, with a between the nostrils nearly to the strongly-hooked tip, which is also black; the iris, orange-red; and the legs and feet reddish-yellow.

The porcupine is a native of Africa and the south of Europe; he chooses for his abode the most arid and solitary situations, and passes the daytime seIn the female, the crown of the head is deep purcluded in the burrows which he digs for his habita-ple, with a bar of white behind the eye; the throat tion, quitting them only at night to provide his sub-white; the neck and sides of the head of a deep sistence, which consists entirely of vegetable sub-drab; the breast dusky, with large triangular spots stances. He is a remarkably timid animal, and of white; and the back dark glossy brown, with vanever makes use of his formidable weapons except in self-defence; if alarmed, his spines immediately become erected, and wo be to the enemy who should dare to attack him open-mouthed when in that posture.

THE SUMMER DUCK. Anas sponsa.-LINN.

The American summer duck, one of the most beautiful birds of its family, is considerably smaller than the domestick species, its total length being about nineteen inches, and the expanse of its wing less than two feet and a half. In the male, the upper part of the head is of a deep metallick green,

her colours nearly resemble those of the male, exrying shades of green and gold. In other respects, cept that she wants the fine pencilling of the sides, and the long floating hairlike coverts of the tail.

We learn from Wilson that this elegant species is familiarly known in every part of the United States from Florida to Lake Ontario; and it is equally abundant in Mexico and in many of the West India islands. Its name of summer duck was given to it by the Anglo-Americans, on account of its usually migrating to the south during the winter; but in some of the southern states it is occasionally met with throughout the year. Its favourite haunts are the solitary, deep, and muddy creeks, ponds, and milldams of the interiour, which it seldom quits to visit the seashore. In Pennsylvania, the female generally begins to lay late in April or early in May, and instances have been known in which the nest was constructed of a few sticks laid in a fork of the branches of a tree. More commonly, however, the inside of a hollow trunk is selected for this purpose, from which circumstance the bird has sometimes been called the wood duck. The eggs, which are very numerous, for Wilson found thirteen in one nest, are exactly oval, smaller than those of a hen, with a finely-grained surface, of the highest polish, and slightly yellowish. The female appears, from a curious history given by Wilson, to make her nest in the same spot, if undisturbed, for several successive years. This species is seldom seen in flocks of more than three or four, and most commonly in pairs or singly. Their food consists principally of

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acorns, the seeds of the wild-oats, and insects; and their flesh is said to be inferiour to that of the bluewinged teal, but they are nevertheless frequent in the markets of Philadelphia.

in several instances wholly, vegetable-eaters, it was impossible for naturalists long to coincide. The genus thus formed presented so heterogeneous a combination, that the difficulty was rather where to stop in the dispersion of the dissimilar materials of which it was composed, than where to commence the necessary operation; and in consequence nearly a dozen genera, not hanging together in one continued series, but scattered through various parts of the system, and most of them essentially distinct, have been the result of the dismemberment of this single group.

The summer duck is very easily tamed, and even becomes so familiar as to suffer its back to be stroked with the hand. Wilson was informed by a credible witness whom he names, that he had seen a whole yard swarming with summer ducks, tamed and completely domesticated, which bred as well, and were as familiar, as any other tame fowls. In Europe their great beauty has long procured them a place in fancy collections, of which they form a The true civets, to which the genus viverra is conspicuous ornament. now restricted, yield in the extent of their carnivorous propensities to the cats alone, whom they approach very closely in many points of their zoological character, as well as in their predatory, sanguinary, and nocturnal habits. In addition to the six incisors and two canines, which are common to the whole of the true carnivora, they have on each side and in each jaw six molars, one of which is peculiarly adapted for lacerating flesh, while the rest are more or less of the ordinary form. Their tongues are furnished with the same elevated and pointed papillæ which give so remarkable an asperity to those of the cats; and their claws are half retractile. The toes are five in number on each of the feet, and their extremities alone are applied to the ground in walking; the animals are consequently completely digitigrade. But the most distinctive character of the group consists in an opening near the tail, leading into a double cavity of considerable size, furnished with glands and follicles for the secretion of the peculiar odoriferous substance so well known as the produce of the civet, and from which the animal derives his name.

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Under the generick name of viverra, Linnæus comprehended a series, or, to speak more properly, The present species is from two to three feet in a congeries, of quadrupeds, differing from each other length, exclusive of the tail, which is nearly half as so remarkably in form, in structure, and in habits, as much more; and stands from ten to twelve inches to render it absolutely impossible to find characters high. His body, which is more elongated in its by which they might be circumscribed and isolated form than that of any of the animals hitherto defrom their fellows. His definition of the genus, scribed, is covered with long hair, the ground-colour therefore, although purposely expressed in terms the of which is of a brownish-gray, intermingled with most vague and indistinct, neither excludes such numerous transverse interrupted bands or irregular animals as, from their obvious affinities, he could not spots of black. A series of longer hairs of the latter refrain from referring to other groups, nor includes colour occupy the middle line of the back, from befull one half of the species which he has arranged tween the shoulders to the extremity of the tail, and beneath it. The ichneumon of the Nile, the suir- form a kind of mane, which may be raised or decate of the Cape, the coati of South America, the pressed at pleasure. The legs and greater part of stinking-weasels of the North, the civet of Barbary, the tail are perfectly black, and the upper lip and the genette of the East, the ratel of South Africa, sides of the neck nearly white. A large patch of and others equally distant in affinity, were sweeping- black surrounds each eye, and passes from it to the ly compelled into this ample receptacle, which was angle of the mouth; and two or three other bands of converted into a genuine "refuge for the houseless," the same colour pass obliquely from the base of the in which every carnivorous quadruped, known, un-ears towards the shoulder and neck, the latter of known, or imperfectly known, that appeared to be which is marked by a broad black patch. without a place elsewhere, was charitably afforded a temporary asylum.

In his natural habits, the civet closely resembles the fox and the less powerful species of cats, subsisting by rapine, and attacking the birds and smaller quadrupeds, which form his principal food, rather by night and surprise than by open force and in the face of day: reduced to a state of captivity, he becomes moderately tame, but not sufficiently so to allow himself to be handled with impunity. In many parts of Northern Africa large numbers of them are kept for the purpose of obtaining their perfume, which bears a high price and is much es

In this arrangement, which brought animals truly digitigrade, with retractile claws, tongues covered with sharp papillæ, canine teeth of great power, and molars formed for tearing flesh, consequently in a high degree sanguinary and carnivorous in their habits, into close and intimate contact with others, which are positively plantigrade, with exserted claws, smooth tongues, and teeth of little power and evidently incapable of lacerating animal food, and which are therefore in all cases more or less, and teemed.

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