246 DOUGLAS' JOURNAL 



The last three days' journey afforded good sport with the gun among the 

 small pheasant, curlew, and black or mountain grouse, basking on the 

 shores of the river. In company with Messrs. McLoughlin and McLeod, 

 I arrived at Fort Colville on the Kettle Falls in the morning, having 

 travelled on foot seventeen miles. We were most cordially welcomed 

 by my old and kind friends, Messrs. Dease and Work. Hung out my 

 papers, examined the seeds ; found my box with all my articles quite 

 safe which was omitted to be sent down last autumn. 



Friday 13th to Tuesday 17th. Weather changeable : hail, snow, and 

 rain, wind northerly. The first night of my arrival, I had the great mis- 

 fortune to get my pair of grouse devoured, the skins torn to pieces by the 

 famished Indian dogs of the place. Although they were closely tied in a 

 small oilcloth and hung from the tent-poles, the dogs gnawed and ate the 

 casing, which were leather thongs. Grieved at this beyond measure. 

 Carried the cock bird 457, and the hen 304 miles on my back, and then 

 unfortunately lost them. Wrote a note to Mr. Archibald McDonald at 

 Okanagan to endeavour to procure for me a pair against the sailing of the 

 first vessel for England. Mr. Work showed me a pair of Mouton Blanche 

 of the voyageurs, male and female, skins in a good state of preservation. 

 Is the same animal which I saw in Peall's Museum at Philadelphia, brought 

 by Lewis and Clarke. The male is large, 200 to 250 Ib. weight. The 

 female considerably smaller, a purer white colour, at the same time finer, 

 the beard less, and the horns shorter. Also a pair of Black-tailed Deer, 

 male and female, likewise in a good state. The former killed on the high 

 mountains twenty miles higher up the river, during the late heavy snows, 

 by the Indians on snowshoes, with their bows. The latter abounds in all the 

 mountainous country in this neighbourhood and is killed abundantly in 

 the same manner. The same gentleman had a solitary skin of the small 

 wolf of the plains, a singular variety and curious from its being the deity or 

 god of the Flathead tribe of Indians. Perhaps I might have got the whole 

 off Mr. Work, but knowing them to have been procured at the particular 

 request of Mr. Ganny 1 in London, I of course could not ask for them. 

 Mr. Sabine, I hope, will get them through that channel. Took a single 

 specimen of each plant not already sent to England, and packed in one 

 of my old journals to save room. Packed the remainder to be sent to 

 England and left the few minerals collected on my journey upward in 

 charge of Mr. Work. Gathered a few bulbs of Claytonia lanceolata,- Lilium 

 pudicum,s and roots of Erythronium grandiflorum. Although in a bad season 

 for removal, I cannot forbear making a trial. Made a memorandum for 

 Mr. McLoughlin regarding the final packing of two boxes at Fort Vancouver 

 to be placed on the ship's invoice as ' dry plants, seeds, preserved animals, 

 and articles relating to natural history,' for the Horticultural Society of 

 London. Made a note to be read to my Chenook friend Cockqua, regarding 

 skins of Arctomys, which I was unable to get when there. In order that 

 Mr. Sabine may know of the ship's arrival in England, that the collection 



1 Name almost illegible. ED. 



2 Claytonia caroliniana var. sessilifolia, S. Wats. Bibl. Ind. N. Am. Bot. p. 117. 



3 Fritillaria pudica, Baker, in Journ. Linn. Soc. xiv. p. 267. 



