The State of New York has just completed her survey, which has been conducted on a scale commensurate with her wealth and enterprise. The different departments of the survey were, in 1836, assigned to eight gentlemen well qualified for the task, and from that time until their completion, the explorations were conducted with energy and enthusiasm. The reports are to be published in ten magnificent quarto volumes, of which the first is now before us. A more splendid monument of intelligent enterprise in the cause of science, has seldom been erected by any State. The first volume contains only a portion of the first report on Zoology, by Mr. James E. DeKay, to whom this department was committed. Governor Seward has written an introduction to the work, which occupies nearly two hundred pages. It is valuable as a historical record of the progress of the arts, the sciences, and the various branches of enterprise and industry in the State, though as a literary performance it can claim no especial merit. It is, indeed, little more than a compendium of the history of the State, and of its general statistics, of which the different portions have been contributed by different persons. The portion of the Zoological Report which this volume contains—relating merely to the Mammalia of the State—is highly valuable, and, to the naturalist, exceedingly interesting. Previous to this survey, no complete Zoology of the State had been attempted. In 1813, Samuel L. Mitchell commenced an account of the fishes of New York, which was the first work on the subject ever undertaken; and the impulse given to the science by his labors in fact laid the foundation for whatever has been effected in the same department since. Several other branches of Zoology had received some slight attention before the commencement of the State survey. Bachman, a well known naturalist of South Carolina, had made interesting discoveries in the families of smaller quadrupeds, and much valuable information concerning the ornithology of the State had been collected by Wilson, Audubon, Cooper, Bonaparte and DeKay. Barnes had classified the Unionidæ of the lakes and rivers, and the Mollusca of the sea coast had been well studied by Dr. Gay, of New York city. But the report of Mr. DeKay in this department presents by far a more full and comprehensive account of the Zoology of New York than had ever before been made. The State was divided into four Zoological districts: first, the western district, embracing all the western portion of the State, as far east as the sources of the Mohawk; second, the northern, comprising all that portion of the State lying north of the Mohawk valley; third, the valley of the Hudson, including all the counties watered by that river and its tributaries; and fourth, the Atlantic district, embracing Long Island. In regard to its natural history, the northern district is by far the most important. Strange as