Vol "wi9 XVI ] Harris, Notes on Harris's Sparrow. 181 



and Clark), Westport, and the great Konzas Indian village, while 

 a short distance up-stream were three other landmarks frequently- 

 mentioned by travelers. Fort Leavenworth, the mouth of Little 

 Platte River, and the Black Snake Hills. 



These names bring to mind several notable ornithologists and 

 botanists whose published journals and narratives are at once 

 fruitful sources of information to the working student and delight- 

 ful reading to any person. Of all the young scientists who passed 

 Ihis way in their eagerness to explore the unknown beyond and 

 gather its treasures to science, perhaps none are of more interest, 

 though others may be more widely known, than John K. Townsend 

 and Thomas Nuttall. Nuttall's discovery here of the bird now 

 known as Harris's Sparrow (Zonotrichia querula), together with 

 the fact that two other eminent ornithological explorers, at later 

 periods, each believed he had discovered the bird in this same 

 region, renders the tradition of peculiar and obvious local interest. 



A long entertained hope of being able to determine the actual 

 locality in Jackson County, Missouri, where Nuttall took the 

 original specimen of this Sparrow, has led the writer to bring together 

 the widely scattered data bearing on the early history of (he bird. 

 The facts in question, which do not appear to have been previously 

 assembled, present several interesting features. 



Nuttall and Townsend had outfitted in St. Louis in late March, 

 1834, preparatory to a leisurely pedestrian journey of some three 

 hundred miles across the state to Independence, where they were 

 to join the large caravan under Captain Nathaniel J. Wyeth, bound 

 for the Columbia River country. On April 28th the party left 

 Independence over the frontier trail to Westport, distant approxi- 

 mately fourteen miles. Some time during the day Nuttall, who 

 was primarily a botanist and is said to have carried no gun, took, 

 or had taken for him by some member of the party, the type speci- 

 men of Harris's Sparrow which he named the Mourning Finch 

 {Fringilla querula). Nuttall writes: "We observed this species, 

 which we at first took for the preceding [White-crowned Sparrow], 

 a few miles to the west of Independence, in Missouri, towards the 

 close of April. It frequents thickets, uttering in the morning, and 

 occasionally at other times, a long, drawling, monotonous and 

 solemn note te de de de. We heard it again on the 5th of May, 



