2i6 Audubon's Western Journal 



water that a ditch is necessary to carry it off from 

 the dirt floor. This man came round the Horn, 

 and the long voyage and poor food left him such a 

 victim of scurvy that since he arrived in California, 

 the first of last October, he has worked only six 

 days; the relative with whom he came, and who 

 has toiled for both, has only been able to keep them 

 in provisions, with his best endeavors; he has no 

 money to get home, now his only wish. This 

 man is the brother of Barnum, the museum man; 

 he has written to him, and is awaiting a draft 

 which will enable him to return. 



Day and night (these beautiful moonlight 

 nights), flock after flock of wild geese pass almost 

 hourly over our heads to the north. I give up in 

 despair trying to fathom the use of their migration, 

 when hundreds of their fellows are known to breed 

 so far south. Their courtship is kept up as they 

 fly high over the grassy plains where they fed last 

 fall, for if you look closely at the flock, you will 

 see that with the exception of the old gander, a 

 fourth larger than the others, as a rule all the rest 

 are in pairs, and the males follow the females so 

 closely that the line is composed of two very near 

 together, two a little distance from them, and so 

 on to the end. 



March 28th. Wood's diggings having given 

 me such sketches as I could take, we took the 

 valley road to Chinese diggings, en route for 



