THE OREGON NATURALIST. 
THE SNOWFLAKE AS 
VISITANT 
A WINTER 
On the prairie here we see no bird now [ Jan. 
5, 1895.] except the snow-flake, which arrived 
last fall, from its breeding place, North, Dec. 
2oth. Last year it arrived Dec. 24th. the year 
before Dec. 14th. 
ing and wonderful little fellow; liveliest during 
To me it is a very interest- 
cold weather: perhaps through necessity to keep 
warm, During our most severe storms he may 
be observed picking about for seeds, I have 
seen him during a severe ‘‘blizzard”’, apparent- 
ly suffering no discomfort; when man clothes 
himself in furs and cannot bare his hands ten 
minutes without the risk of a severe frost bite. 
How he stands the cold is a mystery. 
He is mostly to be met with along the drive- 
ways and about the stacks of fodder and farm 
yards. He is a timid fellow and will not per- 
mit man man to approach him, I wish it were 
not so; for I should like to get my hands on him 
Not for 
‘scientific purposes’, as the law says when the 
without having recourse to the trap. 
taxidermist wants to take his life and preserve 
his skin, but to caress and talk to him and _ in- 
quire alter his health and to learn what sort of 
region that is, where he spends the summer and 
rears his family of little ones. It must be a rigid 
climate, that he is able to endure ours, I have 
occasionaliy observed the horned lark associat- 
ing with him, seemingly thinking he was one of 
them, 
We do not see him all the winter, he seems 
to come and go; but where? does he go south 
and we have uew arrivals, brought to us by one 
storm and carried away by another. He s 
plentifully present as long as the cold continues 
and stragglers are observed utill after seeding 
of grain—as late as May.— Perhaps he has been 
driven far south to escape the severe weather 
and finding the climate congenial to his taste 
has tarried too long and so is belated in reach- 
ing his summer home, 
S. M. Epwarps, 
Argusville, N, Dak. 
165 
MEMALOOSE ILLAHE, 
in the 
Columbia river, called Memaloose; Ten-as ill- 
-a-he mem-a-lvose ; literally translated; A 
little earth for the dead, 
There are several small islands 
The island on which the illustration of a de- 
stroyed memaloose house was taken, is located 
near The Dalles of the Columbia and was the 
principal place of burial for the populous Indian 
trading town of Wishram, 
The mode of burial was to wrap the body in 
robes of fur, and lay it out in his canoe, with 
such articles as were supposed to be needed in 
the future life, then convey to the place of 
burial; if an island, which was usually the case 
with the fishing Indians, it was there left ex- 
posed on the surface, but if the burial was on 
the main land the body was placed in the 
crotch of some tree, frequently many feet up. 
It is supposed that the use of tue Memaloose 
huts, a small structure built over the body, was 
not in use until after the advent of white men in 
numbers. The Islands have been so desecrated 
by vandals, that no satisfactory conclusion can 
be arrived at. 
A mummified body of an infant perhaps a 
year or more of age, was closely wrapped with 
strings of beads; copper heads alternating with 
dentalium shell, On the legs and arms were 
many brace'ets of copper, placed over the bead 
wrappings. ‘here was evidence of the body 
having been wrapped in beaded robes. 
Among the articles found on fthis island are 
the irons of flint lock guns, fragments of bows 
and arrows, spear heads, coins, medals. U.S. 
A, equipmenis, trinkets such as are sold by 
Indian traders, vessels made from mountain 
sheep horns, camas diggers (so called) made 
from a prong of an elk horn, with a large hole 
in the middle, copper rings, bracelets, spoons 
pendants and what appear to be shields for 
the joints made from copper, locally termed 
knee caps, etc. The extreme high water of 
1894, when the island was nearly covered by 
the waters of the Columbia, either washed away 
or buried under a deposit of several feet of sand, 
the greater part of these interesting relics. 
