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Mammals of Canada
Introduction
Presented in this paper are the unpublished hand-written writings on Canadian mammals by Charles Fothergill (1782-1840). They have been transcribed from his Essay Descriptive of the Quadrupeds of British North America, which was written in 1830, and from natural history manuscripts written during his residence in southern Ontario between 1817 and his death in 1840. The manuscripts can be found in the Thomas Fisher Rare Book Library (TFRBL) of the University of Toronto, Manuscript Collection #140: 25 (Clendenan Manuscript) and #140:20 (MacGillivrary Mansucript). Quadrupeds, formerly in the Blacker-Wood Library of Ornithology, is now held in the Rate Book Library of McGill University. A microfilm copy of Quadrupeds is also available at the TFRBL.
Fothergill set down in his many unpublished manuscripts extensive notes on the birds, mammals, herps and plants of his adopted country. Unfortunately, on his death in 1840, all of his manuscripts on the local natural history of southern Ontario were divided among family members and lost from public view. They were unknown to later 19th century Ontario residents and to newly-arrived English immigrant naturalists who founded Toronto’s natural history museums in the late 1840s and early 1850s.
I was initially drawn to Fothergill for his extensive writings on the birds of southern Ontario. While transcribing the bird records in the MacGillivray and Clendenan manuscripts I could not help but be impressed by his mammal writings interspersed in those texts. Once I had transcribed his bird records it seemed natural to transcribe his mammal writings as well. The MacGillivray and Clendenan manuscripts, which contain most of his ornithological writings, are also the largest, and most important source of his mammal writings. There are other manuscripts which merit examination. In particular in TFRBL # 140:28, known as Natural History Notes, which contains a few writings on Canadian mammals. These have not been transcribed. My research notes indicate that they contain little useful additions to what is presented here.
Mammals forms an important and unique early record of Canadian mammal writings. When reading Fothergill’s species accounts in Mammals readers will see his occasional speculation about the number of species that might exist in Canada and lack of knowledge of their ranges. This is a product of the knowledge of mammals at that time of writing and the fact that Fothergill did not travel outside of southern Ontario.
One will see in his writings a strong interest in taxonomy as well as interesting observations of species behavior. This is particularly interesting because for the most part discussion of taxonomy and species behavior is less evident in his Birds of Upper Canada 1840. No doubt the sheer volume of bird species that Fothergill encountered that were new to him, and his busy multi-faceted life, greatly limited his ability to spend the hours that his contemporaries Wilson and Audubon were able to devote to field study and compilations.
Despite Fothergill’s relative isolation, one will note his references to contemporary writers especially the seminal work on Canadian mammals Fauna Boreali Americana Volume One, The Quadrupeds written by Dr. John Richardson and published in 1829. There are also references to American writers such as Richard Harlan’s Fauna Americana (1825) and Samuel Mitchell who wrote about natural history and mammals in the American Journal of Science.
It is difficult for contemporary naturalists living in southern Ontario, when reading the Fothergill material, not to feel a sense of how much of our wilderness we have lost. Fothergill had close contact with Pine Martins, Mink and Fishers in Port Hope and Pickering. His reports of two sightings of Cougar in Hamilton and Otonabee Township north of Port Hope, and Wolverine in Brockville are exciting and disheartening at the same time. Throughout the late 19th century and well into the 20th century naturalists doubted that Cougars even existed in Ontario. The range of the Wolverine has now shrunk to extreme northwestern Ontario and northern Quebec. As a long-time resident in an area when the Great Lakes Forests were still large intact, Fothergill’s extensive mammal observations in the first half of the 19th century are unique in Ontario. If more research is undertaken on the writings of other early 19th century Canadian naturalists I strongly suspect his mammal writings, like his bird writings, will prove equally unique in Canada.
In addition to his personal observations on mammals, Fothergill relied on his contacts with neighbours as well as prominent men known to him in Upper and Lower Canada. Some of this knowledge was gained from his position as a representative in the Parliament of Upper Canada. He also relied on personal discussions with contemporary explorers and fur traders especially the well-known western Canadian trader, Simon Fraser, who ventured as far as British Columbia. Inevitably the observations recounted to him, that he set down as fact, were sometimes inaccurate or erroneous. Another unique feature of his writings is the regular inclusion of the names ascribed to species by various aboriginal tribes across the country.
I have transcribed Mammals in its entirety, verbatim, with no editorial changes except to occasionally provide slightly better sentence structure, and introduce occasional paragraphs to improve the flow of the text. Readers will see multiple entries for some species written at different times. I have merely grouped them together but made no effort to edit them. We know that the Quadrupeds material was written prior to 1830. For he most part the material from the Clendenan and MacGillivray volumes is not dated. I have also made no effort to try to arrange his writings chronologically.
There are some instances where I have not been able to decipher Fothergill’s words or may have misunderstood his meaning. In such cases I have inserted square brackets to connect the ttext. I am of course entirely responsible for any errors. I have included the original page numbers for passages from the manuscripts for those who may want to examine the hand-written versions.
Quadrupeds is a scientific paper prepared by Fothergill for the first Montreal Natural History Society essay competition. Quadrupeds is a singular historical document with its original taxonomic order written by Fothergill in 1830. I have transcribed Quadrupeds as written. The original paper with my introduction, table of contents and index will be found elsewhere under the Fothergill writings.
I have arranged this volume in modern taxonomic order and family from Wikipedia’s taxonomic list of North American Mammals. I have included a section outlining the family’s genetic characteristics as set down by Fothergill in Quadrupeds. I expect that my attempt to incorporate Fothergill’s historical efforts to bring taxonomic order to various families of mammals has not always been entirely successful. For this I can only apologize in advance. Finally I have also included modern common names, as well as Fothergill’s original names and first describers of each species followed by the Fothergill’s writings on these species. These editorial additons and comments are identified by the use of square brackets to differentiate them from original text.
By far the most important work on Canadian Mammals in the 19th century is John Richardson’s Fauna Boreali Americana, Volume One: Quadrupeds (1829) Boreali has long been out of print. Readers can examine Richardson’s Quadrupeds can do so through the Biodiversity Heritage Library website available online here.
There here are at least two other important works on early Canadian Mammals written by resident naturalists prior to 1850. Overviews of these two documents are included to help bring into focus the obvious differences in breadth of content between Fothergill and his contemporaries:
- On the Mammals and Birds of the District of Montreal written by Archibald Hall in 1839. Dr. Hall’s paper was eventually published in parts in the Canadian Naturalist and Geologist 6 (1861). Hall’s article contains detailed descriptions of mammals from the Montreal Natural History Society Museum. I have transcribed Hall’s personal comments on each species without his detailed descriptions and written an introduction to this important work. This paper can also be found under Archibald Hall in the period: 1815-1840 Quebec.
- Dr. Anthony Gapper published his research findings from the Toronto region entitled Observations on the Quadrupeds found in the district of Upper Canada extending between York and Lake Simcoe, with the view of illustrating their geographical distribution, as well as describing some Species hitherto unnoticed. in the Zoological Journal of London in 1830. I have transcribed the Gapper article. It will also be found on this website under Gapper in the period 1815-1840 Ontario. I have left out his illustrations. Like Hall’s Mammals it is a rigourous and important early scientific paper on Canadian mammals.
I have done a dis-service to Fothergill by presenting his writings in Mammals without editing his extensive writings on individual species. If Fothergill had produced a complete manuscript of his mammal writings I have no doubt he would have organized and presented it in a typical scientific format presented below. No doubt he would have also edited his writings to make their presentation and content more cohesive..
To provide better access to Fothergill’s Mammals I have created a simple Table of Contents and a Taxonomic Index. While Fothergill is known to have produced numerous drawings of birds, only two drawings of Canadian mammals, the Lynx, and the Muskrat have been found. His drawing of the Lynx is presented on the title page of this volume.
Identifications of many mammal species such as Lynx, Raccoon, Deer, Pine Martin, Woodchuck and Eastern Chipmunk are fairly straight forward. However the identities of some of Fothergill’s smaller species of including some bats, mice, and shrews are much more problematic. For the most difficult of these I have sought the help of Mark Peck of the ROM, who directed me to Bernard Lim and Jacqueline Miller, zoologists at the Royal Ontario Museum. Their comments on species are noted in each case. I want to thank them for their help. There are still some species that have not been identified. For any errors which may still exist I am of course responsible.
I include below comments by Ms Miller about the Fothergill writings she was asked to review:
Had a look at the descriptions against several sources and some of our collections specimens. This was difficult as many of the ‘characters’ cited are obscure and not taxonomically significant. I have made comments on the characters I could tease out which appear in the draft document. This ID is by no means definitive……
For each species account the complete list of writings includes the manuscript source: Q = Quadrupeds, M = MacGillivray and C = Clendenan, and page numbers listed followed by the actual vebatim transcriptions. I have also included Order and Family names and scientific names and first describers added where species have been identified.
In my research on the Birds of Upper Canada 1840 it was evident to me that Fothergill was the first describer of many Ontario and Canadian bird species. In order to assess Fothergill’s place in early Canadian ornithology I conducted extensive research into early writings from 1534 to Condederation and from Newfoundland and Labrador to British Columbia and the arctic.
I have made no attempt at a similar assessment of Fothergill’s contributions to knowledge of Canadian mammals. In order to do that significant research would be required to examine the early records from New France, Acadia, the Maritimes, Newfoundland, Labrador and from the Hudson’s Bay naturalists who supplied specimens from the Canadian arctic and western Canada.
Finally, after completing Quadrupeds Fothergill included the following text entitled “Recapitulation” (Q89) which I include here. It might have formed part of an introduction he might have made if he had published his complete mammal writings:
By the preceding catalogue it will be seen that the British North American Possessions afford more than one half of all the Quadrupeds which Buffon allows to exist on the entire face of the globe. It is true many species here set down were unknown to that distinguished naturalist, and it is equally true that many more remain to be discovered. This remark is made not so much for the gratification of our national vanity as for the purpose of exciting still further inquiry.
Upon the whole we may congratulate ourselves that the ferocious animals bear so comparison either as member or formidably with those that are or may be rendered of utility to man. North America presents a wide field for observation research and experiment and it is highly gratifying to reflect on what may be accomplished by the exertions of two such respectable establishments as the Historical Society of Quebec and the Natural History Society of Montreal. These institutions deserve the thanks and best wishes of the Canadian Public.