[Footnote 139: See Catesby's Natural History of Florida, Carolina, &c. This bird is called by Linnæus Corbus Cristatus. I have seen, in Mr. Pennant's MS account of the history of the animals, birds, &c. of N. America, and the Northern hemisphere, as high as lat. 60, an exact description of this bird. Whenever that ingenious author, to whom we are indebted for many elegant and interesting publications, gives this part of his labours to the world, the zoology of these countries will be fully and accurately considered.]
The following list of these plants was communicated to me by Mr. Pallas: I insert them however without presuming to decide, whether they are the exclusive growth of North America: the determination of this point is the province of botany.
Trillium Erectum. Fumaria Cucullaria. A species of Dracontium, with leaves like the Canna Indica. Uvularia Perfoliata. Heuchera Americana. Mimulus Luteus, a Peruvian plant. A species of Rubus, probably a variety of the Rubus Idæus, but with larger berries, and a large laciniated red calyx.
None of these plants are found in Kamtchatka, or in any of the neighbouring islands[140].
[Footnote 140: According to Mr. Pallas, the plants of the new-discovered islands are mostly alpine, like those of Siberia; this he attributes to the shortness and coldness of the summer, occasioned by the frequency of the North winds. His words are: "Quoique les hivres de ces isles soient assez temperés par l'air de la mer, de façon que les neiges ne couvrent jamais la terre que par intervalles, la plupart des plantes y sont alpines, comme en Siberie, par la raison que l'eté y est tout aussi courte et froide, a cause des vents de nord qui y regnent." This passage is taken from a MS treatise in the French language, relative to the new-discovered islands communicated to me by my very learned and ingenious friend Mr. Pallas, professor of natural history at St. Petersburg; from which I have been enabled to collect a considerable degree of information. This treatise was sent to Mons. Buffon; and that celebrated naturalist has made great use of it in the fifth volume of his Supplement à l'Histoire Naturelle.]
Though these circumstances should not be considered as affording decisive proofs, that Beering reached America; yet they will surely be admitted as strong presumptions, that he very nearly approached that continent[141].