104 NARRATIVE OF THE EXPEDITION. 



hazy, we knocked down some pigeons, which flew very low * 

 This bird seems to be precisely the common pigeon of the At- 

 lantic borders. The Indians had constructed a iish-weir between 

 the lake and Montreal falls, whei'e the lake sturgeon are caught. 



After passing about a league beyond the Montreal, the voyager 

 reaches a curve in the lake shore, at which it bends to the north 

 and northwest. This curve is observed to extend to the De Tour 

 of the great bay of Fond du Lac, a computed distance of the 

 voyageurs of thirty -six miles, which, as before indicated, is about 

 one-third overrated. The immediate shore is a level plain of 

 sand, which continues to Point Chegoimegon, say eighteen miles. 

 About two-thirds of this distance, the Muskeegof Kiver enters 

 through the sandy plain from the west. This is a large stream, 

 consisting of two primary forks, one of which connects it with 

 Chippewa Eiver, and the other with the Eiver St. Croix of the 

 Mississippi. The difiiculties attending its ascent, from rapids and 

 portages, have led the French to call it Mauvaise, or Bad Eiver.:}: 



* Birds of Lake Supekior. — Of the species that frequent the vicinity of this 

 lake, the magpie is found to approach as far north as Lac du Flambeau, on the head 

 of the Montreal and Chippewa Rivers. This bird is called by the Chippewas Wa- 

 bish Kagagee, a name derived from Walishkau, white animate, and Kaw-gaiv-gce, a 

 crow. The three-toed woodpecker visits its forests. The T. polyglottis has been 

 seen as far north as the Island of Michilimackinac. In the spring of 1823, a spe- 

 cies of grosbeak visited St. Mary's, of which I transmitted a specimen to the New 

 York Lyceum of Natural History, where it received the name of Evening Grosbeak. 



j- From Muskeeg, a swamp or bog, and o, the sign of the genitive. 



X MusKEEGO, or Mauvais River. — In 1831, the United States government placed 

 under my charge an expedition into the Indian country which ascended this river, 

 with a view to penetrate through the intervening region to the Mississippii^Indian 

 canoes were employed, as being best adapted to its rapids and portages, which were 

 managed by voyageurs. A detachment of infantry, under Lieut. R. Clary, was added. 

 The tribes in this secluded region were then meditating the outbreak which event- 

 uated the next year in the Black Hawk War. This expedition ascended the river 

 through a most embarrassing series of rapids and rafts, which often choked up its 

 channel for miles, into a long lake, on its summit, called I^^iogumaug. From 

 the northwest end of this, it passed, from lake to lake, to th^Bamakagun fork of 

 the River St. Croix of the Mississippi, descended that stream to^^)w River, then re- 

 traced the Namakagun to a portage to Ottowa Lake, a source of O^pewa River, then 

 to a portage into Lac Chetac, the source of the Red Cedar, or Follavoine River, and 

 pursued the latter to the main channel of the Chippewa, and by the latter into the 

 Mississippi, which it enters at the foot of Lake Pepin ; thence down the Missis- 

 sippi to Prairie du Chien, and through the present area of the State of Wisconsin, 

 by the Wisconsin and Fox Rivers, to Greea Bay ; thence through Lakes Michigan 

 aud Huron to Sault de Ste Marie. 



