432 EXPLORATION OF WESTERN MISSOURI IN 1354. 
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judging from several experiments made on serpents, I am led to consider rep- 
tiles too highly organized to recover after being completely congealed. In no 
single instance have I succeeded in restoring snakes to life that had been per- 
fectly frozen. Under these putrefying tortoises I found numbers of beetles, 
Oiccoptoma marginata. Saw, to day, the first Sylvicola coronata. 
11th—Had a pleasant drive of thirty miles over a most beautiful prairie 
country to the “Junction,” in La Salle county. Saw geese, ducks, sand-hill 
cranes, and golden plover in abundance. 
12th.—Left the Junction at half past three in the morning, and in fourteen 
hours we were in St. Louis, distance 217 miles. At the Junction there was 
but little evidence of spring, vegetation having scarcely started, but, as we ap- 
proached Springfield, the influence of a more southern climate was strikingly 
apparent, for the red-bud—Cerczs canadensis—and peach tree were m blossom ; 
and at St. Louis the pears, cherries, and plums are in full bloom. Such a 
change on the now smiling face of nature, since moruing, is more like magic 
than reality. I noticed in a barber-shop window a dlack-bellied fox squirrel, 
just such as we find in the vicinity of Racine; on inquiring I learned that it 
had been obtained up the Wisconsin river. 
13th.—Left St. Louis in the evening on the packet Honduras. 
14th —Making four miles an hour, including detentions on sand-bars. I saw 
this morning a number of cormorants; they must seldom be met any great dis- 
tance from the mouth of the Missouri river, for we saw none above this. Saw 
a duck hawk fly to her eyrie in the face of an inaccessible cliff with a duck in 
her claws on which to feast her young. 
15th.—We find ourselves, this morning, only ninety miles from St. Louis. 
Turkey vultures are nesting in the cliffs all along the river. The crows follow 
the steamboats for the purpose of picking up whatever is acceptable to their 
omnivorous craws, just like the gulls on the lakes. No gulls on the Missouri 
river. 
16th.—Arrived at the residence of E. Elliott, esq., on the river, ten miles 
below Booneville, in Cooper county, where we propose spending a week. 
_ 17th—Made a preliminary excursion to-day. ‘The surface of the country 
here is much broken; soil on the hills good for wheat and most other small 
grain; corn and hemp raised principally on the river bottom. ‘The timber 
growing on the hills is composed of various species of oak and hickory inter- 
spersed with sassafras of an unusually large growth; on the dottom lands, of 
cottonwood, sycamore, maple, elm, hackberry,( Ce/tzs,) honey-locust,( Gledztschia,) 
coffee-bean, (Gymnocladus;) on the hill-sedes, of mulberry and redbud matted 
together and overrun with grapevines. I was much surprised to find such fine 
old fruit orchards as we saw here. ‘The trees are remarkably vigorous and 
healthy, free from the attacks of insects. One pear tree, 35 years old, on the 
“Elliot farm,” produced the last season 45 bushels of excellent fruit. Peaches 
seldom or never fail to yield an abundant crop. Apples are now plenty at 25 
cents per bushel, delivered; and better flavored, fairer, and more perfect fruit I 
never saw at this season of the year. Grapes do well with but little cultiva- 
tion. All things considered, the hilly country bordering on the Missouri is 
one of the best fruzt regions to be found anywhere. But few migratory birds 
have yet arrived, while vegetation is as forward as it is in Wisconsin on the 
15th of May, but the crested tits and cardinal birds by their merry whistle do 
what they can to compensate for the deficiency of singing birds. Shot several 
squirrels ; the gray squirrel here is no doubt distinct from the Wisconsin spe- 
cies ; the fox squirrel found here appears different likewise. ‘The want of un- 
varying characteristics by which closely allied species of Sczwrzd@ may be dis- 
tinguished is to be lamented; for after all that has been done by Bachman and 
others in this department, it must be admitted that there is yet much confusion 
and uncertainty ; we look with hope to the extensive collections teing made by 
