21 AN ANGLER'S REMINISCENCES. 



here. It is interesting to sportsmen to show how abundant game was even 

 then. It certainly ran the gamut: 



JOHN B. DRAKE'S TWENTY-FIRST ANNUAL DINNER. 



CHICAGO, 1875. 



MENU. 



Blue Points. Soup Venison, hunter style; game broth. Fish Trout, black bass. Boiled 

 Leg of mountain sheep, ham of bear, ven : son tongue, buffalo tongue. Roast Loin of buffalo, 

 mountain sheep, wild goose, quail, redhead duck, jack rabbit, blacktail deer, coon, canvasback 

 duck, English hare, bluewing teal, partridge, widgeon, brant, saddle of venison, pheasants, mallard 

 duck, prairie chicken, wild turkey, spotted grouse, black bear, opossum, leg of elk, wood duck, 

 sandhill crane, ruffed grouse, cinnamon bear. Broiled Bluewing teal, jacksnipe, black birds, 

 reed birds, partridge, pheasants, quail, butterball duck, English snipe, rice birds, redwing starling, 

 marsh birds, plover, gray squirrel, buffalo steak, rabbits, venison s-teak. Entrees Antelopd 

 steak, rabbit braise, fillet of grouse, venison cutlet, ragout of bear, hunter style, oyster pie- 

 Salads Shrimp, prairie chicken, celery. Ornamental Dishes Pyramid of wild goose liver in 

 jelly, pyramid of game, en Bellevue. Boned duck, au nature). The coon out at night. Boned 

 qua.il, in plumage. Redwing starling on tree. Partridge in nest. Prairie chicken en socle. 



Among the guests was Long John Wentworth, who had been present at the 

 first dinner, sixty-three years ago. 



I doubt if any such bill of fare was ever set up in any land at any period. 

 The Canadian Camp of our time, in a notable attempt at renascence, made an 

 extraordinary display of wild meats at its sumptuous dinner two years ago, and 

 the confines of the earth were levied on; but the selection of viands was not 

 after St. Peter's choice (Acts x, 11-14) as substitutes for game. The menu 

 would have delighted the Indians at the Crow Agency, who are natural omni- 

 phagists, and have a keen taste for miscellaneous comestibles. Chief Hole-in- 

 the-Day, of whom I was speaking, himself had more style about him. He gave 

 me his portrait, which is now in the gallery of the Minnesota Historical Society. 

 He occupied a fairly good one-story house with four rooms, which sufficed to 

 accommodate himself and his seven wives. Although conforming, to a certain 

 extent, to civilized ways, he adhered tenaciously to his aboriginal costume and 

 was more often seen in his flaming red blanket and fancy moccasins than in a 

 dress shirt. When he gave an audience to visitors of consequence he donned 

 a war bonnet of bald eagle plumes, and stretched himself out on a lounge in regal 

 style ; each individual feather of said bonnet supposed to stand for an opponent 

 killed in battle. 



Allan Morrison was agent at the time, and Paul Beaulieu, a French half- 

 breed, was interpreter. Allan's elder brother, William Morrison, piloted Henry 

 R. Schoolcraft to the headwaters of the Mississippi not many years before, and 

 Schoolcraft was living at the time. I had a tilt with him in the Evening Post 

 as to priority of discovery. But William had been trapping on Itasca feeders 

 since 1808, before him. But official recognition of the headwaters were necessary 

 for government acceptance, and Schoolcraft won. Beaulieu died eleven years ago 

 at Leech Lake, at the age of seventy-seven years. He was a loyal servitor, and 

 raised a full company of bucks and breeds in 1863 for service in the Civil War. 

 These agency Indians as I saw them, were not fastidious as to diet. On one oc- 

 casion they hauled a drowned horse out of the river, and fed on the meat with 

 gusto for several days, as long as it lasted. And yet there was choice game in the 

 woods, game on the open prairie, and catfish in the river! "De gustibus non 

 disputando." 



